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Essay on Religion. 



From a historical and Philosophical Standpoint, 



BY MORRIS M. COHN 






^ 



j „. 

W ,;,? 

BLOCH&CO., M^ 

PUBLISHERS AND PRINTERS. 

1876. 



// 



7 



^ 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred 
and Seventy Five, by 

MORRIS M. COHN, 

In the Office of the Librarian at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



<3* 

HE writings of all authors are entitled to weight onlv so far as thev are con- 



% 



sistent with reason, experience and observation. The ideas those writings 
expose, however, dogmatic or doubtfully expressed, should have such force as is 
consonant with truth. 

With this view. I offer the succeeding essay to the public, deeming my ar- 
guments not weakened in saying that it expresses only what I think to be true. 

My language may sometimes be considered to implicate a knowledge (per- 
sonal knowledge) which I do not. and in the nature of things could not, pos- 
sess: but this is not so much my fault as the fault of prevailing language, ideas 
and customs. I have only to say that in no place have I desired to convey what 
I believed to be an untruth, but what I believed to be truth. 

The candid reader will not have his faith in \he conclusions pointed to in 
the essay weakened by these statements: the faith of the prejudiced and unfair 
are to me wholly immaterial. 

Little Rock. Ark., July 17. 1S75. 



ESSAY ON RELIGION. 



FROM 4 HISTORICAL pD PHILOSOPHICAL STANDPOINT, 



Thoughts Respecting Religion in the Past, Present and Future. 



PART I.— ARTICLE I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Individuals, communities, States, nations 
and the human civilized family exist. In- 
herently exhibiting a persistent force, con- 
stant changes in their form, their appearance 
discover themselves. Each change is the 
sure precursor of innumerable other changes. 
Modification, with each cycle, becomes vast- 
ly more multiform. Ceaseless, restless al- 
teration governs all forms. 

Six centuries ago the institutions of the 
civilized man of to-day found no representa- 
tion in North America, nor did the tolera- 
tion now exercised more than begin to pre- 
vail in Christian Europe. Twelve centuries 
back the mind of the European masses was 
enveloped in the darkness of illiteracy and 
ignorance. Eighteen centuries in the past 
the population of the world showed the 
barest paucity, if any, of spirituality, as 
herein defined. And so, further retrograd- 
ing into the dim vistas of time past, along 
paths for centuries choked with the dust and 
cobwebs of ages, of which but the faintest 
notice can be conceived, we may trace, and 
we find the condition of things presents in- 
creased variation. 

The age of the earth is not definitely 
known. The age of the world, however, 
Scriptural chronology would fix at some- 



what more than fifty-six centuries past. 
What world ? Not the world of matter, nor 
the world of force ; for " from nothing, no- 
thing can come "; not matter nor force came 
from nothing. It is the same whether mat- 
ter is a mere manifestation or form of force. 
And all things resolved into their primordial 
state, it has been claimed, were matter or 
force. The solar system ? The entire sys- 
tem of words? Surely not, the proofs 
against this are overwhelming. Then what 
world ? 

On earth little, insignificant man eventu- 
ally came ; he breathed, saw, heard, smell- 
ed, felt and tasted ; he desired, ailed and 
reflected. When the number of human be- 
ings was more than one, the senses, emo- 
tions, thoughts and will were greater and 
different in quantity and quality than if but 
one person existed. But from the time the 
first sentient, reflecting being, distinguished 
as a human being, existed, the world — that 
is, man's world — was; not before. Thus 
we say the world began with the first mind. 
This world is man's ; it does not compre- 
hend the world beyond man — that is, the 
world of some superior Power or Being. 

Man recognizes nothing, and doubts the 
possibility of anything existing, except in 
the divine shape, superior to himself, any- 
where. But some thing or being superior 
does exist, which in man's world is the Di- 



— 3- 



vine Being, the Almighty Power, whose 
world is not man's. 

You will say, then, that the world — man's 
world — is not uniform in the universe it dis- 
closes ; that with intellectual development 
and increase in numbers of the race of man ; 
the limits of the world are extended onward 
and enlarged. Tiue, and so man's experi- 
ence, science and philosophy, history and 
reason, show the truth to be. 

Perhaps man's reason (which in nearly all 
things in the cosmos of his world is the cri- 
terion of the existence and truth of what is 
claimed) is not in one, solitary instance to 
construct a hypothesis of his genesis to be 
entertained, or perhaps a hypothesis so con- 
structed is not to be depended on, but to be 
ridiculed, reprobated and condemned, and, 
on the contrary, a Scriptural account of the 
genesis, coming in the shape of tradition, is 
to be accepted as unquestionable and irrefu- 
table. 

Be this as it may be. Whether, indeed, 
the human being developed, according to 
tthe Darwinian theory, through selection 
adaptation, reproduction and heredity, in 
the slow progression of ages; wherefrom, as a 
necessary conclusion, reason deduces, it 
must be true that man was originally not 
only a barbarian, but (in a human shape) 
the most primitive order of barbarian, a be- 
ing, so to say, little, if any, superior in ap- 
pearance or intelligence, to the gorilla that 
infests the countries of the East, from which 
it is inferable, and, as analysis has shown, 
is not improbable, but most probable, that 
with successive production and reproduc- 
tion there came finally from an order of an- 
imals (possibly and possibly not the com- 
mon ancestors of the human being and the 
chimpanzee), man in the state of the primi- 
tive barbarian ; or, whether we say the hu- 
man family began with one man, created 
miraculously, out of whom miraculously 
woman came, came contrary to anything the 
laws of nature — which God so graciously 
fixed — have shown to man can be ; and from 
man and woman thus born, the human spe- 
cies, in consequence of co-habitation, found 
increase, is not material, neither view con- 



flicting with the facts of history and experi- 
ence herein relied upon. 



History, alas ! is largely unreliable, and 
it is only of late that historians have writ- 
ten accounts, in the main to be relied upon, 
and this because of the reasons given it by 
the later historians and logicians. These 
historians and logicians have laid down 
certain principles and rules to guide them 
and others in separating the 1 enable from 
the unreliable of accounts of things and oc- 
currences of past time, and very important, 
and far less fallible than before, has been 
the result. 

Prof. Bain, quoting Sir G. C. Lewis, sum- 
marizes : "In the case of contemporary 
history the writer may be able to rely upon 
his own observations, or upon original doc- 
uments obtained from authentic sources. 
Personal knowledge was the basis of much 
of Xenophon's Anabasis, Polybin's History, 
Caesar's Gaelic War, and Lord Clarendon's 
History of the Eebellion. But the greater 
part even of contemporary history must 
repose on the evidence of witnesses. To a 
historian, not himself cognizant of the 
events he narrates, the sources of informa- 
tion fall under one or two of these classes : 
(1) Monuments, ruins, coins, and generally 
all ancient remains, and (2) the evidence of 
witnesses. From the former exclusively is 
derived whatever we know of the pre-his- 
toric age ; in the same way as geology is 
built on inferences drawn from fossils and 
the nature and positions of rocks. It is only 
with regard to history resting upon the tes- 
timony of witnesses that rules of historical 
evidence apply. Two points demand the 
notice of one seeking to verify any alleged 
historical fact. (I) Does the evidence of the 
witness exist in an authentic shape ? and (2) 
Is it true ? The first regards the accuracy 
wherewith the evidence has been transmit- 
ted to us ; the second, the worth of the ev- 
idence itself. The means of knowledge of 
the witnesses, the goodness of their memory, 
their judgment, their general veracity, 
their special interests, are all to be consid- 



_4— 



ered." — [Bain's Logic, vol. ii., Introduction, 
p. 425. 

To which I supplement, that the study of 
languages, as to their origin, progress and 
affinities ; the study of comparative juris- 
prudence, and the deductions resulting from 
the established postulates of science, make> 
together with the foregoing rules and prin- 
ciples (in so far as they are not compre- 
hended within the meaning of those rules 
etc., and are consonant with the ulti- 
mate data of experience), the most accurate 
and reliable method whereby a true his- 
tory of times past may be given and writ- 
ten. 

Governed by these rules, principles and 
considerations, I shall now descant upon oc- 
currences of times past as far as essential to 
the present argument. 

It is just as valid, consonantly with the 
Darwinistic hypothesis, to say that the hu- 
man species progressed from the individual 
to the family, in respect of social and polit- 
ical status, as to predicate the same upon the 
Scriptural account of the genesis, the only 
variance between the two being that the 
one would make reasonable and probable 
the procreation of individuals and families 
more in number than one, independent of 
one another, while the other would base 
the existence of beings to the same human 
progenitors. Hence, the individual stated, 
if I indicate that the development of the 
human species must have been to the fam- 
ily, according to the Scriptural version of 
genesis, I establish the development to have 
been the same if the version which the re- 
sults of science point out is the correct one. 

Then the world began with the individu- 
al, the first individual possessing mind. 
When to the individual was given a human 
mate, and co-habitation resulted, the means 
of increase were found. Man and woman 
in co-habitation, baron and femme, for all 
purpose's, constitute a family. Now, I say, 
the increase has occurred, the human spe- 
cies evolved from individual to family. 

From simplest beginnings to complex re- 
sults is the law of development. From the 



from family to tribe, state, nation, aud from 
nation into society at large the human fam- 
ily evolved and is evolving. (2) This devel- 
opment is but the evidence of a law called 
progress. (3) 

With development, as above indicated, 
man's requirements augmented, and with 
augmentation, his interest awakened the 
sleeping faculties of his mind. Thus man's 
mind became exercised, produced and en- 
larged ; enlarged its productions until, as 
now, those productions are manifold. 

I am only to consider man's mental uni- 
verse so far as it shows a spirituality. The 
products of mind discover in that universe 
the tendency towards a spirituality. Let 
these productions be studied as far as 
proper. 



ARTICLE II.— Argument. 

Sociologists and comparative philologists 
apprise us, and to the thinking person it 
must be apparent, that to conceive the state 
of the primitive human being is exceeding- 
ly difficult. To minds unused to the disci- 
pline of continued and acute thought it 
must be impracticable. Indeed, it is ques- 
tionable whether the thinker, however pro- 
found his conceptions or trained his mind, 
can satisfactorily expose that state. There- 
fore, in so far as my inquiry involves a dis- 
cussion of that state, it may, or possibly 
must, inevitably be unsatisfactory in some 
respects ; though it is hoped that in the par- 
ticular whereon reliance is placed no reason- 
ble objection may or can be found. 

Words, expressive as they are of notions 
and concepts, are exponents and the repre- 
sentatives of thought. Though true that 
each word, as used, does not implicate the 
thought which, possibly, the word philo- 
sophically connotates, yet, when taken in 
connection with the words which are in 
juxtaposition with it and modificatory there- 
of, as the exposition of an intention, judg- 
ment, etc., the word may be expressive of 
thought understood, and with certainty be 
construed. Again, proper and common 
nouns, expressive of things in a concrete 



— 5 



individual to the family ; pro-creation given 
form, distinguishable from all other forms, 
have a definite meaning ; I allude to what 
logicians call categorimatic words. Thus 
the words expressive of God, man, the 
words song, poetry, etc., convey a definite 
signification. From the mental and moral 
state we gather the prevailing spirituality — 
spiritual state — and this, the analysis of 
words, so far as the same are the exponents 
of thought, will partly enable us to discover. 
This is to say, comparative philology may 
be relied upon in this exposition to the ex- 
tent it discloses spirit existence. 

We are informed by logicians that knowl- 
edge results from comparison, which impli- 
cates agreement and, correlatively, dfffer- 
ence, that is, both. Remembering that 
practically, amid the activity and turmoil 
of a busy world, where each striving presses 
others on, or where, as in .archaic days, ex- 
perience and knowledge were, so to say, 
spontaneous), the niceties of agreement and 
difference were unnoticed ; we may predi- 
cate generally that experience, being the 
sum of that activity, is the result of agree- 
ment or difference, and both. The thoughts 
of a person, whether of the present or past, 
are known only through such person's acts 
(or words as distinguished from acts) ; and, 
in the absence of personal acquaintanceship 
the acts and words must be such as have 
been been made manifest in extrinsic ways. 
L <?., ways outside of and beyond the person. 
As the sum of agreement and difference 
within the person's vision expands and en- 
larges, these acts and words will become 
more numerous and varied. Monuments, 
coins, ruins, bones, shells, implements, etc., 
I may say, are indicative of this sum of 
agreement and difference as made manifest 
by acts, at least as far as dependence is in 
this essay required to be placed thereon, 
namely, so far as they discover spirit exist- 
ing. So, it may be affirmed, monuments, 
ruins, coins, bones, shells, implements, etc., 
as far as they reveal the spirit of the peo- 
ple creating them, may be depended upon 
herein. 



Without intelligence, customs and usages, 
the container and result of intelligence 
could not exist. These given, customs and 
usages, the content of which is intelligence, 
and intelligence must be. This intelligence 
is a spirit which, comparatively, may be low 
or high. Again, this spirit, existing in the 
form of customs or usages, breathes moral- 
ity, by comparison, possibly of a low or 
high grade. Law, fictitious law, i. e., the 
body of jurisprudence which defines and 
secures the rights of those among whom it 
exists, presents itself originally, in the ear- 
ly periods of the human family, in the form 
of usages, which in time evolved into cus- 
toms, and eventually into law as recognized 
to-day. 

Prof. Amos has contributed the following 
as expository of what is now nnder discus- 
sion. Thus he says : " The whole commu- 
nity may be regarded as composed of an ac- 
tive crowd of multitudinous atoms, inces- 
santly crossing one another's path and inter- 
fering with one another's freedom of move- 
ment. The influence of family life and of 
the simplest forms of agricultural and in- 
dustrial co-operation, tend of themselves, at 
the very birth of the state, to create within 
the realm of this confused atomic action an 
increasing number of fixed groups or cen- 
ters of independent movement. About the 
same time another series of events is taking- 
place, giving rise to the phenomena of law. 
These events are of different description in 
different communities. Either the groups 
spontaneously enlarge themselves, and the 
village absorbs the family, or some one or 
more of the originally co-equal groups en- 
large in numbers or increase in importance 
out of proportion to the rest, or the whole 
community becomes subjugated to the sway 
or influence of some already organized 
state." 

He adds : "Each of these classes of events 
has been exhibited in the early history of 
celebrated communities, and the researches 
on the subject are too well known to need 
to be more precisely referred to in this place. 
What is of importance, however, to notice is 



that in every ease the final result is the ad- 
justment of the limits of free movement of 
the various groups constituting lhe commu- 
nity, in respect of their capacity for disturb- 
ng each other." 

(4) It is here, inter alia, disclosed, that in 
its development the human family presents 
varying forms, which may properly be de- 
nominated political forms , and that the 
forces superinducing this variation simulta- 
neously evolve law in the consecutive vary- 
ing forms of usages, customs, enactments, 
etc. Political forms are, however, not nec- 
essarily states and nations, reference being 
had to comparative jurisprudence only, the 
political forms may be the family, tribe, vil- 
lage community, municipium, as well as state 
and nation, for the spirit of politics to-day 
is not that in archaic, or in early or even 
past generations. The showing of Prof. 
Amos furthermore indicates that the result 
of the development of the human kind " is 
the adjustment of the limits of free move- 
ment of the various groups, etc. * * * * 
in respect of their capacity for disturbing 
each other." That is to say, it implicates a 
moral restraint on the part of human be- 
ings. " The original process by which the 
spontaneous usages of the people became 
transmitted into true laws," the same au- 
thor in another place affirms, "is constantly 
repeated throughout the whole history of a 
community, though naturally with greater 
facility and rapidity during the period in 
which a large mass of the law continues un- 
written. The process in the case of each 
custom transmitted into law commences 
with a cautious admission, within clearly 
denned limits, of the custom as a rule bind- 
ing on the parties who may be supposed to 
have contemplated its existence in their 
transactions with each other. 

" When a custom is found to exist, not 
among a very small group of men, but 
among all men engaged in certain occupa- 
tions, and to be constantly observed in their 
common transactions ; and if, furthermore, 
the custom be ancient, certain, and not 
counter to the general political and social 



welfare of the community, the admission of 
it as qualifying the ordinary legal rule be- 
comes a fixed practice in courts of law. This 
admission in time acts back again on the rule 
and gives it definiteness and solidity. In 
this way the custom becomes eventually 
binding on all men, and, in fact, indistin- 
guishable from law itself. A very large part 
of the law of all countries is made in this 
way, and especially in matters relating to 
commerce. In England the whole law of 
bills of exchange and promissory notes ex- 
hibits the completion of the absorbing pro- 
cess ; and the general admission of the cus- 
toms prevalent in the stock exchange and 
in agricultural tenures exhibits the earlier 
stages of it." (5) 

I may now say, we can consult the con- 
clusions presented by jurisprudence to as- 
certain the spiriWintelligence and morality 
— prevailing ; for, since through that branch 
of learning, the evolution of law from cus- 
toms and usages is shown, so, by con- 
verse process, tracing back from law to 
customs, and then usages through analytical 
comparison, we may arrive at the spirit of 
primitive races. 

Eeason is its own assurance of proper 
conclusions ; hence, scientific deductions as 
they imply reason, must be valid in discov- 
ering truth ; therefore, they must be valua- 
ble in discovering the spirit of a people. The 
rules and principles laid down in Bain, ex- 
cept so far as they are covered in the forego- 
ing part of this article, are good to the ex- 
tent they tend to disclose such a spirit. And 
this is all I seek after. 



ARTICLE III. 

The question has been agitated, and, not 
to my knowledge satisfactorily answered, 
whether the labors of the specialist in the 
philosophical and scientific field, or, the la- 
bors of the philosopher who discusses and 
expounds philosophy in general, work the 
greatest ultimate benefit ? The question ob- 
viously assumes that in the works of both 
a general spirit of truth, of intelligence and 



__7~ 



morality, is implicated. Conceding to each 
an influence proportional to the spirit (an 
extent of its dissemination) evolved, we may- 
give to each the credit of working a general 
benefit. And further than this, we are not 
concerned to answer the question. The un- 
certainty respecting primitive conditions is 
such, and for many years will so remain, 
that no disquisition treating of special char- 
acteristics or the institutions consequential 
upon those conditions, can be in all things 
credited. 

The archaeologist searching among the cat- 
acombs, or studying the monuments, etc., 
or exploring the written treasures of papy- 
rus, of ancient ages, can hardly hope to ar- 
rive at even a fairly truthful solution of the 
state of the people of those ages by confining 
his inquiries to either or even all of these^ 
He must, combining and harmonizing the 
conclusions of the comparative philologist, 
historiographer, theologist, scientist, philos- 
opher, etc., together with those inquiries 
which have resulted in the study of monu- 
ments, etc., carefully pruning, when proper, 
through the rules expounded by logicians 
and historians, deduce such conclusions on- 
ly as are then clearly sustained. This is 
more than I, and possibly any single per- 
son, at this day can hope to accomplish ; nor 
is it for any purpose herein essential. It is 
only important that the nature of the gen- 
eral spirit which in the age in question ex- 
isted should be indicated. Nor is it neces- 
sary, proper, nor will space allow, that I 
should here reveal that general spirit by an- 
alytical and exhaustive reasoning in extenso 
with a copious reference to institutions and 
works of learning of all ages. 

All that the work of any person can be 
expected to accomplish is a limited degree 
of good. The work of the scientist (special- 
ist or otherwise), the philanthropist, and so 
on, is beneficial only to a limited extent ; 
that is, there is a boundary beyond which 
the general spirit which such works unfold 
do not go. This general spirit is beneficial 
in so far as it introduces among previously 
existing spirit, general, intellectual and mo- 



ral force, an extrinsic, intellectual and mo- 
ral spirit. The inquiry respecting the par- 
ticular characteristics of a work is not as im- 
portant in a discussion regarding the gener- 
al, intellectual and moral state of the human 
kind as. the spirit which the age has gained 
thereby. 

Thus impressed, I have thought it suffi- 
cient, as undoubtedly convenient to confine 
my exposition to general spirit. Therefore, 
I inquire not what this monument or that 
coin discloses, but I ask, given all the relics 
of past ages ; given the discussions upon 
those subjects (not discussion unreliable and 
fabulous, but thorough, critical, and, as far 
as possible now, accurate), the conclusions 
pointed out by the comparative philologist, 
the speculator on comparative jurispru- 
dence, the archaeologist, theologist, so far as 
depending on monuments, etc., the scientist 
and philosopher, and combining and har- 
monizing these conclusions, and given his- 
tory subjected to a rigorous application of 
the rules before spoken of ; and what gen- 
eral spirit is disclosed to have existed in 
the ages with which I am herein concerned 
to acquaint myself. 



AKTICLE IV. 

Joseph Ibn Zaddik, a Jewish philosopher, 
understood man's mind to define man's uni- 
verse. According to the logician's method, 
I have treated of the mode of acquiring 
knowledge, and we have seen that it results 
through comparison, i. e., agreement and 
difference. Logic, indeed, is but a science 
that treats of the laws of thought; (6) from 
which, as a corollary, we deduce without 
thought, hence without mind, there would 
be no logic. Philosophy is the exposition 
of the laws of being, of existence, which, 
without mind as far as man's universe 
goes (which is and need alone be under con- 
sideration), would not be. Again, in the 
application of logic and philosophy to the 
things practically known, the special branch- 
es of human learning result. And these be- 
ing the products of the mind, without it they 



would not be. And, since the comforts 
known are because of the conditions culmi- 
nating in formal branches of human learn- 
ing, and because of those formal branches 
without mind these comforts would not be. 
Let it, however, be remembered that logic 
and philosophy, above spoken of, are such 
in the form presented at this day but a men- 
tal essence, that in time developed into a 
larger and more comprehensive universe, 
with characteristics more and more clearly 
denned in the course of such evolution, un- 
til they attained that nature in the formali- 
ty as understood at the present time. Take 
away mind, and you must place the human 
being, not with our ancestors of a century 
or a thousand centuries ago; not among 
moral beings ; not among creatures who are 
distinguished from animals by a self-con- 
sciousness which has stamped man with the 
attributes of a responsible moral being ; but 
with a rude animal, nay, with the brute cre- 
ation, having nothing but his or her own 
bodily wants to satisfy, without a past or a 
future, without governments, without a his- 
tory. 

Whatever condition above such a state (a 
state incompatible with the human state) the 
human being then is found in is owing to 
mind. And this view especially recom- 
mends itself because it is in perfect accord 
with the notions of the transcendental phil- 
osophers and evolutionists, not to say reason. 
Therefore, in the mind we must rind the 
universe of the human being's well being, 
which is his or her progressiveness or un- 
progressiveness ; and this, as already indica- 
ted, is through the products of the mind. 
These products are treated only as they 
shall disclose spirit. 

Prof. Max Muller, England's great philol- 
ogist and linguist, affirms the origin of the 
human family to be in the East, and writers 
are generally agreed that this is true, but the 
mind is left uncertain as to the exact place 
of its origin. If the doctrine of derivation 
and unconscious, or rather natural, selection 
has any application, and the laws expound- 



ed in physics and biology, topography and 
laws of heat upon the chemical elements of 
the human body, are to be allowed to testify 
in the case of the human being, as in all 
other cases of fauna, we should say that the 
human species originated in Southern climes 
— or rather in climes where the heat was 
equal to what are now called Southern 
climes, but in no special locality. (7) This, 
however, is objectionable to those who 
accept the Scriptural account. As this dis- 
sertation does not require that I should in 
this particular stand in antagonism to Scrip- 
ture or to those disciples of the evolution 
theory who assume the growth of the hu- 
man family from a single couple, I may ad- 
mit that possibly the species originated in 
a special locality. The Scripture, and all 
writers whose authority is at all recognized 
substantially agree that the species orig- 
inated in southern climes ; not only 
because the elements constituting the hu- 
man body and the physical influences acting 
upon and necessary to force into being those 
elements so as to bring them to assume the 
bodily shape peculiar to the human being 
testify thereto, but because this agrees with 
the conclusions thus far arrived at by the 
archaeologist, of philosophy, comparative 
history and philology, not to say jurispru- 
dence and theology. We have no knowl- 
edge, at least authentic, of the origin of the 
human species in northern climes, we have 
no knowledge of any environments favora- 
ble to the original generation of the human 
being in northern climes, and (which is a 
conclusive argument with some), Scriptures 
are against it. Let us, however, leave the 
question undetermined. Beginning with 
that epoch when the human family existed 
in Asiatic countries, let us assume the ex- 
istence of that family there when, as conce- 
ded, they were there. 

Naturalists now admit that species are 
variable, nor does their classification of flora 
and fauna heretofore given satisfactorily re- 
but this idea. It is admitted that the de- 
marcation lines defining orders, families, 
species, etc., are not clearly marked, indeed 



_ 9 — 



may be considered impracticable of estab- 
lishment, leaving the proposition that they 
evolved from previously existing states, 
which in their turn evolved from preceding 
states, and so on. Likewise, whatever the 
special facts may be in dwelling upon the 
human races in the East, the most that can 
satisfactorily be said is that a later resulted 
from an earlier generation, etc., that hered- 
itary traits were transmitted, that the psy- 
chological conditions, through adaptation to 
changed physical influences from such as 
operated upon preceding generations or an- 
cestry, yielded and became differentiated 
from the state of progenitor to extent of the 
modification worked thereby, that new ex- 
periences were constantly received, thereby 
generating new desires, that opinion became 
modified to conform to the altered environ- 
ment, beside which emigration and immi- 
gration introduced theretofore non existing 
influences, etc. In addition to the spirit 
consequential from the impetus — the motive 
power— resulted upon such environment, 
there was the influence created by this spir- 
it acting back upon the affected. 

In order to be as accurate as possible, I 
shall take the East, briefly as a whole. 



ARTICLE V. 

In the ^Esthetics of Llegel, as condensed 
by M. Ch. Benard in French, and transla- 
ted from the French, by J. A. Marthing, 
certain philosophical observations are ex- 
pounded in the following words : 

"The destination of man, the law of his 
nature, is to develop himself incessantly, to 
stretch unceasingly toward the infinite. 
He ought, at the same time, to put an end 
to the opposition which he finds in himself 
between the elements and pow r ers of his be- 
ing; to place them in accord by realizing 
and developing them externally. Physical 
life is a struggle between opposing forces, 
and the living being can sustain itself only 
through the conflict and the triumph of the 
force which constitutes it. With man, and 
in the moral sphere, this conflict and pro- 
gressive enfranchisement are manifested 



under the form of freedom, which is the 
highest destination of spirit. 

Freedom consists in surmounting the ob- 
stacles which it encounters within and 
without, in removing the limits, in effacing 
all contradictions in vanquishing evil and 
sorrow, in order to attain to harmony with 
the world and itself. In actual life, man 
seeks to destroy that opposition by the sat- 
isfaction of his physical wants. He calls to 
his aid, industry and the useful arts ; but 
he obtains thus only limited, relative, and 
transient enjoyments. He finds a nobler 
pleasure in science, which furnishes food 
for his ardent curiosity, and promises to re- 
veal to him the laws of nature and to unveil 
the secrets of the universe. Civil life opens 
another channel to his activity; he burns to 
realize his conceptions ; he marches to the 
conquest of the right, and pursues the ideal 
of justice which he bears within him. He 
endeavors to realize in civil society his in- 
stinct of sociability, which is also the law of 
his being, and of the fundamental inclina- 
tions of his moral nature." 

It is continued : "But here, again, he at- 
tains an imperfect felicity ; he encounters 
limits and obstacles which he can not sur- 
mount, and against which, his will is brok- 
en, tie can not obtain the perfect realiza- 
tion of his ideas, nor attain the ideal which 
his spirit conceives and toward which it 
aspires. He then feels the necessity of ele- 
vating himself to a higher sphere where all 
contradictions are cancelled; where the idea 
of the good and of happiness in their per- 
fect accord and their enduring harmony is 
realized. This profound want of the soul is 
satisfied in three ways: in art, in religion, 
and philosophy. The function of art is to 
lead us to the contemplation of the true, 
the infinite under sensuous forms, for the 
beautiful is the unity, the realized harmony 
of two principles of existence, of the idea 
and the form, of the infinite and the finite. 
This is the principle and the hidden es- 
sence of things, becoming through their 
visible form. Art presents us, in its works, 
the image of this happy accord where all 
opposition ceases, and where all contradic- 



lO- 



tion is cancelled. Such is the aim of art, to 
represent the divine, the infinite under 
sensuous forms. This is its mission ; it has 
no other and this it alone can fulfill. By this 
title it takes its place by the side of relig- 
ion, and preserves its independence. It 
takes its rank also with philosophy, whose 
object is the knowledge of the true, of abso- 
lute truth. * * * * Art is addressed to 
sensuous perception and to the imagina- 
tion ; religion is addressed to the soul, to 
the conscience, and to sentiment, philoso- 
phy is addressed to pure thought or to the 
reason, which conceives the truth in an ab- 
stract manner." (9). 

Our knowledge is essentially a knowledge 
of forms. The philosophy of the evolution- 
ist shows the existence of a persistent force, 
through which the existence of all things is 
accounted for. All existing things are by 
his reasoning shown to be mere manifesta- 
tions of force. The knowledge of things is 
essentially derived from comparison, as 
heretofore said, and these manifestations of 
force, (as distinguished from, that which is 

pregnant with no tangible reality space), 

are the object — the things — so, by compari- 
son, edifying us with knowledge, otherwise 
expressed, experience and the increase of 
experience. But that which has caused 
this force or the true- nature of this force — 
in its reality — is a mystery, the former an 
absolute mystery to him. He concedes the 
reality behind these forms is inscruta- 
ble. (10). 

Without mind these experiences would 
not be. With the mind's development 
primordial condition of things becomes the 
formulated and is conceived to result from 
a power and as the reason approaches the 
highest human possibility, the nature of 
that power, in its absoluteness, assumes a 
god-like essence, of the purest truth and 
wisdom. The mind has evolved and is 
evolving into higher and higher states, 
which is to say, that it tends to a higher 
spirituality, a spirit impressed with soul, a 
point where religion and science are in ac- 
cord. This harmonizes with Hegel and 
Spencer. It reveals that idealism and ma- 



terialism are neither sufficient in them- 
selves, that they are together explanatory 
of phenomena, which are obscure without 
both. Now the high spiritual state I con- 
ceive, is an inherent, inextinguishable con- 
sciousness of some power, mysterious, the 
nature impossible to conceive, yet because 
of our very reason felt, as it were, to exist, 
which with the increase and perfection of 
our reason, becomes more and more defin- 
itely fixed, a Being All Powerful, neces- 
sarily all-wise, omnipresent, and omnicient. 
This process of reasoning, or rather the 
mental state which is synonym6us with 
this high spirituality, may, in some respects 
be assimilated to the process of thinking, 
by virtue of which, as the positive becomes 
clearer and more definite, the negative, cor- 
rectively, becomes clearer and more defin- 
ite; yet in attaining the state of spirituality 
there is not hard, cheerless thought, but a 
moral spirit implicated. 

I think to the farthermost limit of my 
thinking self, and I find a boundary ; I look 
out, objectively, at the existence around 
me and I find, that without eternal life, 
there is a boundary, and until the human 
being acquires eternal life, there must be a 
boundary; I conceive the process of my 
thinking and I am conscious it is condi- 
tioned, it is relative , and so impressed with 
the notion of my limit, I ask myself, can 
there be a state of no limit for the human 
being ? and I must answer, no ! But behind 
my thinking I am always bound by an in- 
tuitive notion of absoluteness existent, and 
this absoluteness, by virtue of the state it 
must occupy, since there is power (whether 
under the form of moral or otherwise), 
must embrace all power — moral power — but 
the nature, or if you will, the real form of 
that power I can not conceive. I am satis- 
fied with the consciousness of that power, 
the all powerful the all-wise God. Now 
this being the highest spirituality, when 
acquired, I inherently, purely worship God. 
My explanation, I must assume, has re- 
vealed something with respect to which, 
Hegel, in the quotation is silent. He is too 
formal, treating of all save that Being 



11 — 



which must exist, which man in his high- 
est moral state must worship. But the 
quotation is important, as thereby, in addi- 
tion to what I have supplemented, a crite- 
rion is given us by which we shall be en- 
abled to measure the spirit of ages. 

Some historians, writers upon compara- 
tive jurisprudence, and comparative philo- 
logists not to speak of comparative theolog- 
ists, agree that at a very remote age China 
and India exhibit conspicuous evidences of 
no low degree of civilization in their monu- 
ments, works and language ; but they do 
not, I think, dispute, that their systems of 
government, jurisprudence, and religion*)* 
disclose, upon the w r hole, an almost total 
lack of moral freedom, a total lack of the 
spirituality as already denned. The gener- 
al spirit disclosed to exist after a considera- 
tion of their entire environment, leaves as 
decided, and, I submit, irrefutable, remem- 
bering how the probably superior spirit of 
the few sage is dissolved in and among the 
spirit of the immensely larger number of 
grossly ignorant, that it is of a very gross 
kind. Their art symbolical and cold, evinc- 
ing an absence of the pure and spiritual, 
thus stamping their religious spirit of a low 
grade. Their philosophy is unsatisfactory, 
so blended with superstition as to destroy 
its proportions. There is no ratiocination. 
Nor let it be supposed that I have forgotten 
that a Gautama or Sakya Muni lived. 

In addition to the preceding observations 
the' conclusions of Mr. Buckle, explanatory 
of the existence of the structures and works 
of India are proper to be referred to. 
Thereby we are led to believe, those struc- 
tures and works were only because of the 
system of labor (slave, labor, or a system 
analogous) there prevailing. 



ARTICLE VI. 

I call attention to the fact, that by virtue 
of the reasoning of Hegel and supplemental 
remarks, when we ascertain the spirit of 
people as to art, we do so at the same time, 
as to religion and philosophy. Religion and 
philosophy are a part of the spirituality; 



that is, art religion and philosophy are the 
exponents of an inner self-consciousness — 
of more, a spirituality. 



"The symbol is an image which repre- 
sents an idea. It is distinguished from the 
signs of language in this, that between the 
image and the idea which it represents 
there is a natural relation, not an arbitrary 
or conventional one. It is thus, that the 
lion is the symbol of courage; the circle, of 
eternity ; the triangle, of the Trinity ; and 
the cross was a religious symbol among the 
Persians. 

" The symbol however, does not repre- 
sent the idea perfectly, but by a single side. 
The lion is not merely courageous, the fox 
cunning. Whence it follows that the sym- 
bol having many meanings is equivocal. 
This ambiguity ceases only when the two 
terms are conceived separately and then 
brought into relation; the symbol then gives 
place to comparison. 

"Thus conceived, the symbol, with enig- 
matic and mysterious character is peculiar- 
ly adapted to an entire epoch of history to 
oriental art and its extraordinary creations. 
It characterizes that order of monuments 
and emblems by which the people of the 
East have sought to express their ideas, and 
have been able to do it only in an equivo- 
cal and obscure manner. These works of 
art present to us, instead of beauty and 
regularity, a strange, imposing, fantastic 
aspect. 

"In the development of this form of art 
in the East, many degrees are notice- 
able." * * * 



" The sentiment of art, like the religious 
sentiment or scientific curiosity is born of 
wonder. The man who is astonished at 
nothing lives in a state of imbecility and 
stupidity. This state ceases when his spirit 
freeing itself from matter and from physical 
wants, is struck by the spectacles of the 
phenomena of nature, and seeks their 
meaning, when it has the presentiment of 
something grand and mysterious in them, of 
a concealed power which is revealed there. 



12 



" Then it experiences also the need of 
representing that inner sentiment of a gen- 
eral and universal power. Particular ob- 
jects — the elements, the sea, rivers, moun- 
tains — lose their immediate sense and sig- 
nificance, and become for spirit images of 
this invisible power. 

"It is then that art appears ; it arises 
from the necessity of representing this idea 
by sensuous images, addressed at once to 
the senses and the spirit." 

"The idea in religions, of an absolute 
power is manifested at first by the worship 
of physical objects. The divinity is identi- 
fied with nature itself. But the rude wor- 
ship can not endure. Instead of seeing the 
absolute in real objects, man conceives it 
as a distinct and universal being ; he seizes, 
although very imperfectly, the relation 
which unites this invisible principle to the 
objects of nature; he fashions an image, a 
symbol designed to represent it. Art is 
then the interpreter of religious ideas. 

" Such is art in its origin ; the symbolic 
form is born with it. Let us now follow it 
in the successive stages of its development, 
and indicate its progression in the East be- 
fore it attained the Greek ideal." (11). 

Before proceeding further let the expla- 
nation of art, as heretofore given, be re- 
membered and deeply thought of. Above 
all let a proper conception of the meaning 
it implicates be taken. 

"That which characterizes symbolic art is 
that it strives in vain to discover pure con- 
ceptions, and a mode of representation 
which befits them. It is the conflict be- 
tween the content and the form, both im- 
perfect and heterogeneous. Hence the in- 
cessant struggle of these two elements of 
art, which vainly seek to harmonize. The 
stages of its development exhibit the suc- 
cessive phases or modes of this strug- 
gle." (12). 

A key to the spiritual state of the East, is 
found in the study of the relation which 
the general spirit of the people in question 
bears to that highest human state, before 
explained. 



In treating philosophically of Persian art, 
in his peculiar dialectic, Hegel expounds 
these ideas: (13). 

' 'Persian art. At the first moment of the 
history of art, the divine principle, God, 
appears identified with nature and man. 
In the worship of the Laura, for example, a 
real man is adored as God. In other re- 
ligions, the sun, the mountains, the rivers, 
the moon, and animals, are also the objects 
of religious worship. 

"The spectacle of this unity of God and 
nature is presented to us in the most strik- 
ing manner in the life religion of the an- 
cient Persians, in the Zend — A vesta. * * * 

"Hegel seeks to demonstrate this opinion 
by an analysis of the principal ideas which 
form the content of the Zend — Avesta. Ac- 
cording to him, the worship which the 
Zend — Avesta describes is still less than 
symbolic. All the ceremonies which it im- 
poses as a religious duty on the Parsees are 
those serious occupations that seek to ex- 
tend to all purity in the physical and moral 
sense. One does not find here any of those 
symbolic dances which imitate the course 
of the stars, or any of those religious acts 
which have no value except as images and 
signs of general conceptions. There is, 
then, in it no art properly so-called. Com- 
pared with ruder images, or with the insig- 
nificant idols of other peoples, the worship 
of light, as pure and universal substance, 
presents something beautiful, elevated, 
grand, more conformable to the nature of 
the supreme good and of truth. But this 
conception remains vague ; the imagination 
creates neither a profound idea nor a new 
form. If we see appearing general types, 
and the forms which correspond to them, 
it is the result of an artificial combination, 
not a work of poetry and art. 

"Thus this unity of the invisible princi- 
ple and visible objects constitutes only the 
first form of the symbol in art. To attain 
to the symbolic form properly so-called, it 
is necessary that the distinction and the 
separation of the two terms appear clearly 
indicated and represented to us. It is this 
which takes place in the religion, art and 



13 — 



poetiy of India, which Hegel calls the 
symbolic of the imagination." 

Next he treats of Indian art. "The char- 
acter of the monument which betrays a 
more advanced form, and a superior degree 
of art, is then the separation of the two 
terms. Intelligence forms abstract concep- 
tions, and seeks forms which express them. 
Imagination, properly so-called, is born ; 
art truly begins. It is not, however, yet 
the true symbol. 

" What we encounter at first are the pro- 
ductions of an imagination which is in a 
state of complete ferment and agitation. In 
the first attempt of the human spirit to sep- 
arate the elements and to re- unite them, its 
thought is still confused and vague. The 
principle of things is not conceived in its 
spiritual nature ; the ideas concerning God 
are empty abstractions ; at the same time 
the forms which represent Him bear a char, 
acter exclusively sensuous and material- 
still plunged in the contemplation of the 
sensuous world, having neither measure or 
fixed rule to determine reality, man ex- 
hausts himself in useless efforts to pene- 
trate the general meaning of the universe, 
and can employ, to express the profoundest 
thoughts, only rude images and representa- 
tion, in which there flashes out opposition 
between the idea and the form. The imag- 
ination passes thus from one extreme to 
the other, lifting itself very high to plunge 
yet lower, wandering without support, 
without guide, and without aim, in a world 
of representations at once imposing, fantas- 
tic, and grotesque." * * * "He" [Hegel] 
" makes it apparent that, in spite of the fer- 
tility, the splendor, and the grandeur of 
these conceptions, the Indians have never 
had a clear idea of persons and events — a 
faculty for history, that in this continual 
mingling of the finite and the infinite there 
appears the complete absence of practical 
intelligence and reason. * * The concep- 
tion of Brahma is the abstract idea of being 
with neither life nor reality, deprived of 
real form and personality. From this ideal- 
ism pushed to the extreme, the intelligence 
precipitates itself into the most unbridled 



naturalism. It deifies objects of nature, the 
animals. * * * The union of man with 
God is lowered to the level of a simply ma- 
terial fact. Thence also the vole which the 
law of the generation of beings plays in this 
religion, which give rise to the most ob- 
scure representations." 

Then he philosophically descants upon 
Egyptian art : 

"Thus the creations of the Indian imag- 
ination appear to realize only imperfectly 
the idea of the symbolic form itself. It is 
in Egypt, among the monuments of Egypt- 
ian art, that we find the type of the true 
symbol. * * * * 

" Henceforth, physical form, in art, loses 
its independent value and its separate ex- 
istence ; still further, the conflicttof form 
and idea ought to cease. Form is subordin- 
ated to idea. That fermentation of the im- 
agination which produces the fantastic, 
quits itself and is calm. The previous con- 
ceptions are re-placed by a mode of repre- 
sentation, enigmatic it is true, but superior, 
and which offer to us the true character of 
the symbol. 

" The idea begins to assert itself. On its 
side, the symbol takes a form more precise ; 
the spiritual principle is revealed more 
clearly, and frees itself from physical na- 
ture, although it can not yet appear in all 
its clearness. 

" The following mode of representation 
corresponds to this idea of symbolic art: 
in the first place, the forms of nature and 
human actions express some thing other 
than themselves; they reveal the divine 
principle by qualities which are in real 
analogy with it. The phenomena and the 
laws of nature which, in the different king- 
doms, represent life, birth, growth, death 
and the resurrection of beings, are prefer- 
red. * * * * There is an imagination 
which already knows how to regulate itself 
and to control itself — which shows more of 

calmness and reason." 
-* * * * -*• * * $ 

"In general, in Egyptian art there is re- 
vealed a profounder, more spiritual, and 
more moral character. The human form is 



— 14 



no longer a simple, abstract personification. 
Eeligion and art attempt to spiritualize 
themselves; they do not attain their object, 
but they catch sight of it and aspire to it. 
From this imperfection arises the absence 
of freedom in the human form. The hu- 
man figure still remains without expression, 
colossal, serious, rigid. Thus is explained 
those attitudes of the Egyptian statues, the 
arms stiff, pressed against the body, with- 
out grace, without movement, and without 
life, but absorbed in profound thought, and 
full of seriousness. 

" Hence also the complication of the ele- 
ments and symbols, which are intermingled 
and reflected the one in the other ; a thing 
which indicates the freedom of spirit, but 
also an absence of clearness and definite- 
ness. Hence the obscure, enigmatic char- 
acter of those symbols, which always cause 
scholars to despair — enigmas to the Egypt- 
ians themselves." 

From this same source I will now, lastly, 
produce another quotation, all the while 
conceding my obligations to the author. 

"Hebrew poetry. In this review of the 
different forms of art and of worship among 
the different nations of the East, mention 
should be made of a religion which is char- 
acterized precisely by the rejection of all 
symbol, and in this respect is little favor- 
able to art, but whose poetry bears the im- 
press of grandeur and sublimity. And thus 
Hegel designates Hebrew poetry by the 
title of Art of the Sublime. * * * 

"The sublime, as Kant has well described 
it, is the attempt to express the infinite in 
the finite, without finding any sensuous 
from which is capable of representing it. It 
is the infinite, manifested under a form 
which, making clear this opposition, reveals 
Hie immeasurable grandeur of the infinite 
as surpassing all representation in finite 
forms. 

"Now, here, two points of view are to be 
distinguished. Either the infinite is the 
Absolute Being conceived by thought as 
the immanent substance of things, or it is 
the Infinite Being as distinct from the be- 
ings of the real world, but elevating itself 



above them by the entire distance which 
separates it from the finite, so that, com- 
pared with it, they are only pure nothing. 
God is thus purified from all contact, from 
all participation with sensuous existence, 
which disappears and is annihilated in His 
presence. 

" To the first point of view corresponds 
oriental pantheism. God is there conceived 
the Absolute Being, immanent in objects 
the most diverse, in the sun, the sea, the 
rivers, the trees, etc. 

" A conception like this can not be ex- 
pressed by the figurative arts, but only by 
p®etry. Where pantheism is pure, it ad- 
mits no sensuous representation, and pre- 
scribes images. We find this pantheism in 
India. All the superior gods of the Indian 
mythology are absorbed in the Absolute 
unity, or in Brahm. Oriental pantheism is 
developed in a more formal and brilliant 
manner in Mahomedanism, and in particu- 
lar among the Persian Mahomedans. 

" But the truly sublime is that which is 
represented by Hebrew history. Here, for 
the first time God appears truly a spirit, as 
the invisible Being in opposition to nature. 
On the other side, the entire universe, in 
spite of the richness and magnificence of its 
phenomena, compared with the Being su- 
premely great is nothing by itself. Simple 
creation of Gocl, subject to His power, it 
only exists to manifest and glorify Him. 

"Such is the idea which forms the ground 
of that poetry, the characteristic of which 
is sublimity. In the beautiful, the idea 
pierces through the external reality of 
which it is the soul, and forms with it a 
harmonious unity. In the sublime, the 
visible reality, where the Infinite is mani- 
fested, is abased in its presence. This su- 
periority, this exaltation of the Infinite 
over the finite, the infinite distance which 
separates them, is what the art of the sub- 
lime should express. It is the religious art 
— pre-eminently, sacred art ; its unique de- 
sign is to celebrate the glory of God. This 
role, poetry alone can fill. 

"The prevailing idea of Hebrew poetry is 
God as master of the world, God in his in- 



15 



dependent existence and pure essence, in- 
accessible to sense and to all sensuous rep- 
resentations which do not correspond to 
his granduer. God is the Creator of the 
universe. All gross ideas concerning the 
generation of beings give place to that of a 
spiritual creation: "Let there be light; and 
there was light." That sentence indicates 
a creation by word — expression of thought 
and of will." (14). 

Of the Chinese, Hegel affirms : 
" This race, in general, has a rare talent 
for imitation, which is exercised not only 
in the things of daily life, but also in art. 
It has not yet arrived at the representation 
of the beautiful as beautiful. In painting, 
it lacks perspective and shading. Euro- 
pean images, like every thing else it copies 
well. A Chinese painter shows exactly 
how many scales there are on the back of a 
carp, how many notches a leaf has; he 
knows perfectly the form of trees and the 
curvature of their branches ; but the sub- 
lime, the ideal, and the beautiful, do not 
belong at all to the domain of his art and 
his ability." Philosophk >. der Geschichta. (15). 



Many persons, imitatively, can draw the 
image of a man, a horse, a house, landscape, 
etc., yet there is something, some expres- 
sion wanting, which is portrayed in the 
drawings or paintings of others. When the 
work of a master is exhibited this distinc- 
tion becomes clearly manifest , this super- 
induces a feeling of mingled delight and 
despair, a noble spirit. Of course, the less 
trained the mind the less will this distinc- 
tion be recognized, and the less this feel- 
ing experienced. Again those who enter- 
tain the feeling, are not, in the majority of 
instances, capable of executing a like work. 
It requires both the capability and the feel- 
ing. That is, it requires the mechanical 
skill and the spirituality. Without the 
spirituality, however great the mechanical 
skill, the work would be pro tanto lifeless in 
spirit. Then just in the proportion the 
works of art, especially religious art, ex- 
hibit this aspect of want of spirit, to such 
extent are they devoid of spirituality. It 



will perhaps be said, the imagination of the 
eastern nations engendered a spirituality, 
which struggled to express itself in some 
outward object. This however was not 
spirituality as we have denned it ; that is, 
spirituality as spirituality, with which im- 
agination has no more to do, except as it is 
consonant with the outcome of reason. 
Therefore given spirituality as spirituality 
and mechanical skill and the work will re- 
veal the same. But the mechanical execu- 
tion is the result of reason, of experience, 
or rather, of truth, (manifested in the se- 
lection of proper modes by which to arrive 
at wished for ends). 

Measured by such a standard the Chinese 
spirituality is lowest, then the Persian, In- 
dian, Egyptian, and, lastly, Hebrew. Speak- 
ing in respect of religion, my criterion en- 
ables me to predicate, with greater cogency, 
the above classification or order in regard 
to the quality of spirit exhibited. But I 
am not required to draw the lines between 
the spirit prevailing among the Eastern na- 
tions, as implicated by Hegel. I may affirm 
generally that the spirituality of the He- 
brews was higher than that of China, Per- 
sia, India and Egypt. 

Comparative philologists,, with whom are 
comparitive theologians, agree for the most 
part, that the oldest stocks of the human 
race are found in the central portion of Cen- 
tral Asia, from whence they dissemminated 
East, West, and North and South. But I 
shall only hold we may say, that the spirit 
which prevailed in Central Asia, influenced 
to a certain extent; through emigration and 
warfare, the East, West and North, so to 
the South ; that the mental status which 
was created by the environment condition- 
ing the Hindoos became impressed upon 
the tribes of people which could be affected 
thereby ; which through emigration and 
warfare reached the natives of Egypt and 
Greece mediately if not immediately ; so it 
reached the natives of Persia and other 
countries not here considered. According 
to this it conclusion is immaterial whether 
the Hebrew nation was an oil-shoot of the 
Egyptians ; whether the Hyskos were ori<>-~ 



— 16 — 



inally Hebrews or not ; or whether that na- 
tion was a mixture of Persians and Egypt- 
ians : or of Semitic races from Egypt ; 
or whether the Egyptians were originally 
from tribes populating Palestine, Syria 
or Persia. 



We know thoughts, by their forms. That 
is anything which has limits is definite, and 
the clearer and more exact the limits the 
more definite the object. Space is definite, 
though not so much so as a rock. Any- 
thing wholly indefinite is inconceivable. 
Now thought ts definite as it is conceivable. 
If you express yourself so obscurely as to 
make yourself wholly not-understood, your 
thought is to me indefinite, not defined, it 
is couched in a form so obscure as to be, 
not-distinguishable as a form of compre- 
hensible thought. Suppose a professional 
physiologist explains to an amateur in 
physiology, a question, the answer to which 
is very difficult; now the matter he ex- 
plains is to him clear and well defined, to 
me it becomes clear through his explana- 
tion, and with subsequent observation 
clearer and clearer. To him the form was 
definite, to me, at first, not so definite, it be- 
comes more and more definite with time 
and observation. Of course it is assumed 
the explanation was correct, was truly ex- 
pository of the reality. So also in every 
branch of human knowledge, we find the 
same to be true. Sometimes, however the 
thought of the person explaining is itself 
indefinite. Now just in the proportion the 
thought is indefinite, will be the form in 
which it is manifested. Thus in Indian 
art, the strong inner feeling prompting to 
expression made itself obvious in a variety 
of forms, there was a longing to express, 
but an inability to express definitely ; cor- 
responding to a semi-barbarous awe, enthu- 
siasm and fanaticism. Hence, if a philoso- 
phy were expounded, it must have been so 
indefinitely expressed, and when dissemin- 
ated so modified by environing conditions 
as to leave some excellent notions and some 
ridiculous ones, which together disclose a 



vast preponderance of imagination ovef 
reason. I submit history, philology, juris- 
prudence, etc., will be found to sustain 
these conclusions. And in a corresponding 
degree, as the like influences which environ- 
ed the inhabitants of India, conditioned the 
other nations of the East, do we find the 
same state of things to exist. If the in- 
fluences were more favorable through com- 
merce, locomotion, inquiry, etc., expressed 
generically, experience, the forms of things 
were more definite, as comforable to the 
experience and understanding regulating 
belief to-day. The Indians had no definite 
conception of law as a system. Their law, 
originally, in the form of customs, was in- 
corporated into the code of Manu, but mu- 
nicipal and ecclesiastical provisions were 
mingled in one collection. (16). 

They had no form or next to no form of 
government. The condition of the Egypt- 
ians and so, especially, the Hebrews, was, it 
is true, much above that of the Indians in 
respect of spirituality. Among the Chinese, 
the laws of Confuciusjmd, upon these, the 
doctrines of the Buddha, should have, as 
they largely have, made the nation accomp- 
lish much, but both have ignored the qual- 
ity of the spiritual, nor is the spirit they 
breathe, disseminated among the masses, far 
in advance of neighboring tribes and na- 
tions. (17). 

We have now with the aid of a little rea- 
son on our part, (which the reader will al- 
ways find beneficial, and herein important, 
to use), a fair idea of the Eastern nations, in 
a general view, as regards their spiritual 
state. While particular sections of country 
or particular tribes or nations of the East 
have not been specially treated of, reason 
will tell, that by comparison their state will 
be found exposed in this general view ; and 
the best sources of information will show, I 
think, that reason in this is not wrong. 



ARTICLE VII. 
This discussion has left us in a condition 
to conceive, as near as necessary the origin 
of the so-called Holy Scriptures. Coinpari- 



17 



son reveals a sameness between portions of 
the Indian theology and that expounded in 
Scriptures, so between the Zend-Avesta and 
Scriptures, and the Koran and Scriptures ; 
we may conclude that many of the religious 
notions expounded therein, had their origin 
in different nations, or that the influences 
environing the people from whom the Scrip- 
tures emanated, were in some respects sim- 
ilar to those nations, whose theology exhib- 
its this sameness. In either view the Holy 
Scriptures are no more divine than the 
work resulting from any other people, or 
number of human beings. (18). 

The Buddhist and Brahmanist believe the 
doctrines of their religion, the Indian theo- 
logy and the theology of the Chinese, in 
their mental universe, to have a divine ori- 
gin, so did the disciple of Zoroaster, and so 
does the Mohammedan ; but we will deny 
this, yet, at the same time affirm the Holy 
Scriptures to have a divine source, although 
we are told in some particulars their doc- 
trines of belief are similar to those of the 
Scriptures, and are in India, Persia and 
China of earlier origin than the Scriptures. 
Much in Scriptures is good ; a great deal 
immoral ; this has reference to the spirit it 
breathes. Its composition is defective. 
Much therein is spurious. Its arrangement 
is unscholarly and illogical. Its contradic- 
tions many and irreconcileable. Some of its 
asseverations are false, even ridiculous. If 
I were to judge the state of mind from 
which it emanated, I would say, such state 
was a mean between the Hebrew and the 
Indian ; sometimes exposing a high moral- 
ity, sometimes ideas, the outgrowth of a 
ery untrained, unreasonable imagination ; 
sometimes a very low morality. 

Taking leave of the East, let me now pur- 
sue my inquiry into Europe. 



PART II.— ARTICLE VIII. 

In Europe, reference being had to the 
manner in which it was peopled, it will be 
found the influx of population was from the 
South and East ; from the South through 
Greece and the nations bordering the Med- 



iterranean ; from the East through Hussia. 
This population brought along the spirit 
prevailing among the same. From the 
South came Semetic and Aryan influences ; 
from the East, Ayran. 

Accepting the same criteria of times past 
heretofore mentioned, in discussing the 
general spirit existent in Europe, we find 
the above statement to be well established. 
It will be needless, my purpose herein 
considered and my manner of treatment re- 
membered, to do more than expose the gen- 
eral spirit prevailing in Europe from the 
commencement of the Christian era. This 
leads me to remark, that the discussion thus 
far has been, to reveal the general spirit 
prevailing in the East, so-called ; because 
there the spirit of Europe found its origin. 
Europe, recollecting the sources of her pop- 
ulation, must have received the general 
spirit prevailing in the East. This spirit 
became modified by the new influences en- 
vironing her people. That the modifica- 
tion became greater, more complicated, in 
each successive cycle may be said to be 
true. 

In her early days, Russia possessed, like 
North Germany, tribes of barbarians. (19). 
Scandinavia showed the same. Britain 
and Caledonia (now Scotland) were peopled 
with an off-shoot thereof. Gaul exhibited a 
portion thereof. France and Spain were 
likewise inhabited. 

Greece and contiguous nations, and 
Rome, exhibited a different class or order of 
inhabitants. 

The hordes of the East are those who 
will be found, from the best sources, to 
have originally inhabited Russia, Germany, 
Scandinavia, Britain, Caledonia, Gaul, 
France and Spain. The inhabitants of 
Greece and contiguous nations will be found 
to have originally come from Persia, Syria, 
Phoenicia and Egypt, those of Rome essen- 
tially from Greece. 

The spirit, then which, before amalgama- 
tion, prevailed in the countries inhabited 
by these hordes, corresponding to the spirit 
existing in India and Persia, must have been 
very low, and as the influences causing 



— 18 — 



comparatively undisturbed reflection, were 
re-placed by those incidental to a mode of 
life at first alone possible in colder coun- 
tries than India and Persia, that of a no- 
madic life, must the intelligence incidental 
to such reflection for a while have been su- 
perseded by a lower grade of intelligence. 
The boundaries of nations at the time in 
question, were not as now understood ; for 
which, and for the further reason, that it 
most intelligibly corresponds with the fact, 
the spirit of those early tribes, modified as 
above indicated and with the countervail- 
ing influences hereafter referred to, may be 
predicated of all of Europe save Greece, 
and contiguous nations and Rome. 

The spirit of Greece, etc., and Rome, must 
have been of a higher quality coming ear- 
ly from Egypt and Phoenicia; not only 
higher than that of northern Europe, but 
also higher than either of those Eastern 
countries, the effect produced by their 
amalgamation. Be this, however, as it may 
be, the spirit which came to Greece, etc., 
with growth, (and the incidents, extension 
of commerce and rise of greater inquiry, 
culminating in a higher philosophy), ex- 
hibited long before the Christian Era, 
a much superior spiritual state to that of any 
Eastern country. 

Rome, subject to different environments 
than Greece, although receiving originally 
her people and their spirit from Greece, 
finally at the opening of the Christian Era, 
disclosed a higher and more perfect spirit 
than Eastern countries in the form of her 
morality, made obvious by her system of 
jurisprudence, though the spirituality was 
on the whole, very nearly the same as that 
of Greece. 



ARTICLE IX. 

The mythology of India (including the 
Hindoos), shows at first fetishism, then 
polytheism, which latter Persia, Egypt and 
China likewise reveal, the Hebrews do not. 

Greece and Rome exhibit to the begin- 
ning of the Christian Era, polytheism as 
the prevailing form of religion; nor could 



it be otherwise, considering the source of 
their population, unless the modifying in- 
fluences there existent, (subsequently crea- 
ted), in the course of their development 
and increase, should have been so great up- 
on this spirit as to have wholly changed it. 
The fountain head of the inhabitants of 
Northern and Western Europe, as also Rus- 
sia, being likewise the Eastern countries, 
the polytheism of the East, if any hypothe- 
sis is correct, must have penetrated into and 
existed among those inhabitants, so long as 
new influences environing them, were in- 
sufficient to change their spirit. Preceding 
the period from whence we examine and 
inquire respecting the spirit of European 
people, Greece and countries essentially 
Grecian, alone, of all European nations, 
showed the rise and dissemination of an in- 
digenous philosophy. Through this, which 
eventually affected Rome, it came that the 
spirit of these countries became less poly- 
theistic and a higher spirituality came to 
evolve. 

Of the inhabitants who peopled the rest 
of Europe, I may say, it is probable their 
spirit, which in one way manifested itself 
in the prevailing polytheism, through con- 
tact with Roman influences, consequent 
upon war and limited intercourse, and Gre- 
cian influences, changed and became less 
imaginative and superstitious and more rea- 
sonable and moral. It may be affirmed, 
and this is sustained by authority, that at 
the commencement of the Christian Era 
the people of Europe were ready for Chris- 
tianity ; the spirit permeating them was so 
conditioned as to beneficially receive what- 
ever influences Christianity and its inci- 
dents, involved. 

ARTICLE X. 

The religious ideas of the Romans, which 
before the dawn of philosophy in Rome 
were polytheistic, under the material influ- 
ence of jurisprudence and the ideal of phil- 
osophy, became confused, whereby skeptic- 
ism arose. To this, together with the ef- 
fect of her policy and the cruelty of her 



19 



Emperors is traceable the depraved state of 
her people prior to and about the time of 
the beginning of the Christian Era, before 
Constantine. This skepticism was superse- 
ded by a faith, destined to sway not merely 
Greece and Rome, but Europe, Christi- 
anity. 



Christianity is a religious faith essentially 
distinguished from preceding religious 
faiths by the belief m Jesus, as Christ and 
Son of God, as a divine being. 



• Whether exactly as now is immaterial, it 
suffices to say, long before Jesus essentially, 
much of the Old Testament was known and 
believed in by the inhabitants of Palestine, 
the Hebrews — the Israelitish nation. How 
it came into existence has been indicated. 
Comparative ignorance, imagination, and 
their products, superstition, conspired to 
make this belief firm and difficult of modi- 
fication, they served also to create in the 
public mind a persistent regard for forms 
and frivolous observances. Thus it came to 
pass, the pure principles of their religious 
faith came to be commingled and to be un- 
distinguished, in the popular mind from the 
ceremonial portion. To the same state of 
mind it is owing (reason to discriminate 
and clearly define being wanting), that re- 
ligious or ecclesiastical and municipal or- 
dinances were heterogeneously mixed as 
part of the law. Coming as their knowledge 
©f times past mostly did by tradition, from 
generation to generation by word of mouth, 
many of their impressions of past states 
and of future events assumed extraordinary 
shapes. Filled with the imagination of the 
wonders of the past, they measured their 
future accordingly ; which, when oppres- 
sion was upon them, stirred their emotions 
to a higher and wild enthusiasm. Thus 
prophecies came to be believed in, and pres- 
ent and future events were accommodated 
to the pictures portrayed by such supposed 
prophecy. I am willing to believe and ad- 
mit that the learned, the sage of Israel, 
were free from the enthusiasm to the ex- 
tent they were free from superstition. 



Perhaps as much as a centum, anyhow 
sometime, before the birth of Jesus, two 
schools of doctors existed in Palestine. 
These, when in consequence of prolonged 
and disastrous wars, the Jewish people 
were vanquished by Eoman arms, and Ro- 
man thraldom oppressed their spirit, in the 
agony of the period for relief, advocated 
different modes by which relief should be 
effectuated. One advocated submission, 
and amelioration of the existing condition 
by the dissemination of religious and moral 
precepts and amalgamation, and with these 
sided the sage ; the other, with which the 
masses, naturally sided advocated a phys- 
ical contest. I saw with which the masses 
naturally sided. The oppression galled 
them ; they desired an expeditious way of 
ending it ; the slow process advanced in the 
views of the wiser were unattractive to 
them ; they remembered the feats of their 
armies and generals, magnified beyond the 
truth, as ignorant enthusiasm seconded by 
imagination will inevitably do. Saul and 
Judas Maccabeus were in their minds. 
The prophecies of their future sounded in 
their ears. 

Now say the most that historically is to be 
said, Jesus was one of the number who ad- 
vocated the first course. More active than 
others in his endeavor to promulgate his 
views, and practically benefit the oppres- 
sed ; views compared to previously preva- 
lent notions, expository of pure morality 
must, comprehending a change in the po- 
litical condition of his people. 

The first day of Passover came close to 
hand, upon which day, as was the custom, 
multitudes came to Jerusalem ; then Jesus 
was to be there ; the labors of Jesus had 
wrought an enthusiasm greater if any 
thing, than of old for the cause of freedom ; 
conditioned as this enthusiasm was with 
the views expounded by the latter school 
of doctors, there were indications pointing 
to a demonstration in Jerusalem, a demon- 
stration having for its purpose war, with 
Jesus as commander, as king, if you like ; 
a war, to the first school, sure to be disas- 
trous, sure to be impracticable ; this dem- 



20 — 



onstration had to be nipped in the bud ; 
Roman watchfulness and cruelty, making 
every demonstration a pretext for slaughter, 
must not be aroused ; such a demonstration 
must only have ended in great, dire and al- 
most unexampled effusion of blood. And 
these being the views which Jesus and the 
first school of doctors entertained, were the 
reasons which led him to deliver himself. 
He delivered himself to the Roman Gover- 
nor, Pontius Pilate, to avert a catastrophe 
to his nation, that is (for Roman inhuman- 
ity would not spare him), he died to save 
his people. (20). 

He was crucified; a punishment never 
existing among the Jewish people of Judea 
but one which descended to, or was con- 
ceived by Roman ingenuity. Thus Jesus of 
Nazareth died. Tkat the masses, the peo- 
ple of Judea must have loved him under 
such circumstances, must be inevitably 
true. 

The virtues of the illustrious dead, the 
living magnify. The condition of the masses 
of Judea, in point of spirituality, betrays a 
state only above that of contiguous nations 
by a faith, and laws corresponding, nearest 
approaching a pure spirituality ; or, at least 
many of their deeds aud notions, make ob- 
vious a state of mind in some respects on a 
level with that of other people bordering 
Palestine ; this leaves the conclusion that in 
many respects they were ignorant; in 
which conclusion I judge, it will be found, 
I am in accord with history, comparative 
philology and jurisprudence, as also com- 
parative theology. A state like this entitles 
us to say, and so I affirm the fact will sub- 
stantially be found, that the inclination to 
exaggerate was great among the masses of 
Judea (21). 

And when there existed a feeling such 
as they entertained for the illustrious Jesus, 
it may be possible their love for him as- 
sumed a reverential shape, their exaltation 
was possibly almost a respect due only to 
divinity — that is, they almost worshiped 
his memory. Had his popularity resulted 
from physical exploits in war, this feeling 



had assumed a different tone ; the kind 
of feeling they held for his memory cor- 
responded somewhat to a religious influ- 
ence. 

But the demonstration did not take place, 
and the people were cast down. Then it 
probably happened that the so-called apos- 
tles, to keep the people inspirited, and to 
carry out the only practicable views for the 
welfare of the people of Palestine, namely, 
the views of the sage an 1 the first school of 
doctors, bent their energies to keep alive 
and farther disseminated the teachings of 
Jesus, whom they may, or may not, by way 
of distinction, have called Christ, i. e., the 
anointed, for it was the custom among them 
to anoint. There is nothing in this distinc- 
tive name. "Son of God," he may likewise 
have been called ; it was an expression 
which, in the figurative language of the He- 
brews, was used among the learned, there is 
no divine characteristic implicated thereby, 
in their use of it (22). 

The labors of the apostles were promo- 
ted through the assistance of others, but 
they did not contemplate a new religious 
faith. 

Paul, thought and affirmed to be the Tal- 
mndical Acker, was an Israelite. He con- 
ceived the great task of ameliorating the 
spiritual condition of the Gentile nations. 
He seized upon a theory which assumed 
the necessity of expounding an abstract 
idea through a concrete form. Thus Jesus 
became a divine Son of God, seated on the 
side of God. Thus the Holy Ghost came to 
be as preached to-day. The Gentile nations 
of mostly a like spirituality as Greece and 
Rome with polytheism for a religious prin- 
ciple could not seize the abstract idea of 
God (23). 

Therefore, the wisdom of Paul's course in 
adopting the theory above mentioned. He 
carried out his theory in practice ; it is said, 
however, with a view of ultimately preach- 
ing and disseminating the doctrines of a 
purer religion (24). 

Be this latter true or not, his field of labor 
became eventually extended to Greece and 



— 21 



Eome, where, finding root, it from nascency 
developed — developed to a mighty instru- 
mentality, and a wonderful form in magni- 
tude, a form not definite, like that of a 
tangible object, but still a form. Slowly 
now an extrinsic force was being introduced 
into and modifying the spirit of Europe's 
people. 

The religion, or rather the doctrines, Paul 
taught and preached, was not Christianity 
as understood to-day — was not Christianity. 
When the new faith assumed, through the 
agency of politico-ecclesiasts, a form, it 
came through the Bishops of Eome, Con- 
stantinople, and Alexandria, and subse- 
quently the Popes. In the meantime it re- 
ceived converts among the Gentiles, the in- 
habitants of Greece, and contiguous nations, 
and Rome and Alexandria. It was not a 
success among the people of Judea, but con- 
trariwise was a failure. The people of Ju- 
dea could not embrace a religious faith mak- 
ing of Jesus a God ; their spirituality could 
not be forced in this way. While the feeling 
they had might have bee n such as hereto- 
fore related, it could not assume such a step 
beyond, as this faith required, although this 
was not as extravagant as earlv Christianitv 
(25). 



ARTICLE XI. 
Christianity first made its appearance in Eu- 
rope, in Greece, from whence it disseminat- 
ed westward. The doctrines, thereof in its in- 
fancy, comprehended a compromise between 
the previously prevailing polytheism, philo- 
sophical notions consequent upon the pro- 
pagation of the philosophy of philosophers, 
and the spirit impregnated with the materi- 
alism, made obvious in the jurisprudence of 
Rome, and the immorality of the commu- 
nity. Thus it was admirably fitted to suc- 
ceed the state of popular religious belief in 
Greece and Rome. 

Constantine, called the first Christian 
Emperor of Rome, who revenged himself 
upon the "Eternal City" by removing the 
imperial abode to Constantinople, was a 
diplomatist. Christianity had shown its 
adaptability, it was rapidly gaining favor 



among a people whose ignorance made a le- 
ligious faith when coming in a popular 
shape, the most mighty of agents. Con- 
stantine wished to be Rome's emperor ; in 
the support of the new faith he saw his 
pow r er, discovered success; accordingly 
he acted, he embraced Christianity. Thus 
he became Emperor of Rome, and thus 
Christianity gained her influential friend, 
whose support insured its success. I pass 
over the early phases of Christianity, the 
decisions of the first, second and third 
councils of Mcea, and the broils between 
the contending branches of the Christian 
clergy. Christianity, between the time of 
Constantine and the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, had spread over Europe. 
Christianity, for all the purposes of this es- 
say, may be designated, that which had its 
focus at Rome, though, indeed, it existed in 
Greece, and in some of the xisiatic and Af- 
rican countries before the advent in Rome ; 
and though the doctrines of the early 
church were subsequently to its rise, taught 
by two branches, into which the Christian 
church became divided, viz.: the Greek 
Church and the Roman Catholic Church ; 
and though the doctrines of the Greek 
Church mostly prevail in the eastern portion 
of Europe, beyond the boundaries of Ger- 
many and the Baltic ; for the essential doc- 
trines of both were and are the same, and I 
have reference only to essential doctrines. 

Whatever may now be said condemnatory 
of the Catholic Church, it is certain that in 
the best age of its existence, it, through the 
exertion of its clergy and other adherents, 
who, before the close of the 13th century, 
had become disseminated over Western 
Europe, was the agent, beside the natural 
circumstances and surroundings condition- 
ing the mind of the people, in advancing 
their intellectual state. Through the learn- 
ing it afforded'and its seminaries, churches, 
monastaries, etc., it elevated the tone of so- 
ciety. 

While it contributed thus to the advance- 
ment of man, the Catholic Church — Chris- 
tianity — as a necessary consequence, ex- 
tended its influence, but when, with an ex- 



22 



tension of influence, the Church became 
despotic and barbarous, and when, (one 
consequence of the intellectual development 
resulting from the erudition diffused by the 
church, the discovery of and instruction in 
the code, etc., of Justinian, the extension 
of commerce and international intercourse, 
and the spread of the doctrines of the old 
and later philosophers), men began to rea- 
son and to doubt, Christianity began to 
wane, and more and more, in the progres- 
sion of centuries, has Christianity, since it 
began to feel the feebleness of approaching 
old age, been losing its influence as a relig- 
ions system, until doubtless, ultimately, it 
will be no more. The indications of its de- 
creasing influence, summarily stated, are, 
the extinction of casuistical works, writings 
once popular but now almost forgotten ; the 
works of the later ethical writers, which, so 
far as they are solely aimed in support of 
Christianity, are now on the high road to ex- 
tinction; the division into sects; the rise 
and extension of rationalism ; tolerance ; 
the general ridicule of the doctrine of in- 
fallibility ; the present state of skepticism ; 
and, finally, the increasing, even wonderful 
spread of science and philosophy, which 
are utterly irreconcilable with Christianity. 
An extension of knowledge gives rise to 
skepticism. Christianity, so long as it did 
not meet with skepticism, of course, held 
the world wherein it governed, in subjec- 
tion, but when skepticism did arise in the 
bosom of the Church, and knowledge en- 
larged its boundaries, Christianity could 
not withstand the effect. The learning dif- 
fused by the Catholic Church took root and 
germinated ; germinating, doubt — skepti- 
cism was created ; skepticism produced in- 
quiry, the effect of which was discovery. 
Discovery has brought to light philosophy, 
logic and science. Science and philosophy 
opened to man's vison the laws of nature, 
and phenomena were explained. This ex- 
planation is costing the Church dear, it 
strikes from under it the frail foundation on 
which it rests. To-day it has no founda- 
tion — no fundamental principle that, at the 
same time, distinguishes and sustains it — it 



is all superstructure, crumbling, like ancient 
castles, into ruins. Faith, blind faith, is the 
superstructure, which, before the march 
of reason, is, ominously vanishing. Chris- 
tianity (that is, the Christian doctrine), is 
inconsistent with philosophy, logic and 
science, hence the truth thereof is doubted. 
Philosophy, science and logic, according to 
the fact, extending their force of reason 
among the human kind, doubt, of conse- 
quence, becomes more wide-spread, and the 
world of Christianity is contracting. Thus 
is demonstrated the wholesome verity of the 
saying, " Truth will prevail." 

Science and philosophy at first repressed 
by the Church, thanks to the tendency of 
things, and, above all, to God, is in our 
day permitted, as it were, unmolested ex- 
tension. The spirit made evident in the 
discussions among the followers of the 
Church, and the division thereof into sects 
together with toleration, the consequence of 
the learning and enlargement of experience, 
eventually, as at this day, left their influence 
free to expand. It is not improper to say 
that they did and do expand, and the expe- 
rience of to-day teaches, that, with permea- 
tion, they are revolutionizing the civilized 
world of ideas and of action, consequential 
thereupon they acquire, so to say, a greater 
influence and extend their sphere of utility. 



ARTICLE XII. 

Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome, 
represent the foci of Christianity after the 
death of Paul, in its nascency. Nursed by 
the Bishops of those places, it, through 
their power, acquired an increase of num- 
bers and influence. When dissentient, 
Constantinople and Alexandria severed 
their allegiance to the Roman See, the 
Greek Catholic and the Roman Catholic 
Church became in name what they had in 
the course of preceding centuries been be- 
coming internally, distinguished from one 
another. The essence of the religion was 
not changed, that is, the belief in Jesus as 
Christ, and Son of God in the divine sense, 
viz.: as a divine being distinguished above 



-23 — 



all human beings by the possession of su- 
pernatural and divine quality. The form 
of church service in small particulars, as 
the sacrament, the place of the altar, the 
posture during service, the manner of con- 
ducting service, etc., may have indeed, 
doubtless did, vary. But images, sacrament 
and paraphernalia were alike used in both, 
and the place given to God was substan- 
tially alike in both. Therefore, I affirm of 
one as the other, the religious faith ex- 
pounded by both, was polytheism per- 
meated with some of the notions and rea- 
soning of philosophy — polytheism and Pla- 
tonism. The creations of imagination and 
the dawning glory of reason's creations 
were .commingling; commingling to, in 
time, bitterly oppose one another; to be- 
come opposed because of the violent men- 
tal strife they entailed, the mental agony 
superinduced. 

In this shape the religious faith of Chris- 
tianity has become disseminated through- 
out Europe and America ; it was a form im- 
plicating the spiritual condition existing 
among the masses, in the time of its rise, 
progress and spread ; a form which each 
decade, is becoming more and more unsat- 
isfactory, a form, however, malleable, which 
will continue to be so long as faith shall pre- 
ponderate as to close out reason. 

That the mind of the human being has 
not yet arrived at the state required is quite 
indisputable. The prejudice of creeds, 
caste, notional bias, the low standard as- 
signed to the animal creation, the political 
spirit, intemperance, extravagance, passion, 
evidence a lack of reason's control. 

If Mr. Spencer's labors have tended to 
demonstrate one truth more than another it 
is, that the tendency of the human mind is to- 
ward reason. In the study of the spirit of 
humanity from its primeval days, the course 
of things exhibits a mental evolution from 
faith without reason to a faith based on 
reason, and this whatever the operating 
forces causing superstition, imagination, 
etc. This the study of Fetishism, Poly- 
theism and Christianity discovers. The 
faith with the least reason has evolved 



into a faith having some reasonable traits, 
but a faith which yet, (and in this respect 
in perfect consonance to the spiritual state 
of the civilized kind,) is because, essentially, 
a faith without reason. 



There is manifested to us now the expla- 
nation of Christianty's prevalence in the 
ages of its existence, and, if the remarks of 
the preceding article will be properly 
weighed, the wherefore of its existence, 
and the evidences of its decline, will have 
been found mentioned. 

The eventual extinction of Christianity 
entails no decline of morality nor misfor- 
tune. Let it be remembered, the worship 
of God according to the dictates of pure 
reason, is not its principle. The principle 
distinguishing it, is the belief, as before 
stated, in Jesus. 

When some thing or being comes into ex- 
istence which did not exist before, it brings 
into the previously existing, a change. Be- 
fore Jesus was born, it is not claimed he ex- 
isted in a divine sense, nor that he sat be- 
side God ; so, then, when he died, and thus 
came to be at the side of God, a change 
took place in respect of God. If, however, 
it is meant only that the spirit which ani- 
mated Jesus is at the side of God, why 
term it either Christ or Son of God ? Surely 
these do not represent an abstract reality, 
but a concrete, mundane form in reality. 
They came down implicating the polytheis- 
tic notions of antiquity in which quality 
they were introduced into and became a 
part of Christianity, the words expounding 
its fundamental principle. In this funda- 
mental principle is rank blasphemy ; beside 
which the acts and doings of followers of 
one creed or no creed against another, fade, 
the scientist, the reasoner will tell you, in- 
to insignificance. It is unreasonable, and 
where believed in, is unsustained by reason. 
Here then, is faith without reason. 

All claim God is absolute, and all, in rea- 
son, must admit that absolute comprehends 
all and eternal state, and reason can only 
concede, above the reasoning human being, 
the Divine Being to be the Absolute, Eter- 



-24- 



nal, Unalterable One; who must be omnipo- 
tent, hence, since sight is power, Omnis- 
scient ; since wisdom is power, All- Wise ; 
since wisdom comprehends goodness, All- 
Good ; since, also, charity, All-Merciful. 
If in reason, I worship the Omnipotent, as 
in reason, I am conscious of Him, and if I 
worship according to the dictates of my 
conscience — the conscience of reason's con- 
sciousness — I am surely no less in morality, 
than if one article of my faith is to worship 
beside that Being, a being who I am told 
was originally a man ; a man who, with 
reason, I must think possesses only the at- 
tributes and finitude of the human being ; 
a man, whom I judge, can not make the 
absolute, limited, conditioned, subject to 
change. I can only reason that my belief 
is a purer monotheism, in fact, is alone 
monotheism, not pantheism or atheism. 
Such a worship is attained only with the 
possession of pure morality — as pure moral- 
ity as man may be expected ever to acquire. 
The belief in a divine essence — God, has 
in all ages of the world prevailed (26). 
Reason leaves no other conclusion ; science 
and philosophy show it to be so, both 
through the evolutionist and idealist. Com- 
parative philology shows it to be so, as we 
may readily collect from the words used to 
denominate God. (27). Jurisprudence, 
comparative history generally, monuments 
and theology, show the same. Religious 
faith has been in all ages of the world. (28), 
it will always be, but not always felt or en- 
tertained through the same mental and 
moral atmosphore; from a belief or faith 
without reason in a time of low morality, 
this recognition of a God has remained and 
strengthened, and, at the same time, as- 
sumed a more definite and satisfactory 
form ; it will continue to become more def- 
inite — to strengthen, to assume a purer and 
purer form ; a form to be formulated only 
to be spoken of ; in spirit pure as ever shall 
be required, the utmost reach within man's 
I>rovince. 



ARTICLE XIII. 

The Kokan, which is the basis / of and 
embodies the doctrines and principles of 
Mohammedanism, has exercised a great 
control over the destinies of mankind, and 
still has a wide influence over a very large 
portion of the human race. In the words 
of an excellent writer: (29). "Consider- 
ing the asserted origin of this book — indi- 
rectly from God Himself— we might justly 
expect that it would bear to be tried by any 
standard that man can apply, and vindicate 
its truth and excellence in the ordeal of 
human criticism." * * * " We ought 
therefore, to look for universality, com- 
pleteness, perfection." * * * " Far in 
advance of all that has been written by 
the Sages of India or the philosophers of 
Greece on points connected with the origin, 
nature and destiny of the universe, its dig- 
nity of conception and excellence of ex- 
pression should be in harmony with the 
greatness of the subject with which it is 
concerned." * * * * "Such a work, 
noble as may be its origin, must not refuse, 
but court the test of natural philosophy, 
regarding it not as an antagonist, but as its 
best support. As years pass on, and hu- 
man science becomes more exact and com- 
prehensive, its conclusions must be found 
in unison therewith." * * * " Tried by 
such a standard the Koran wholly fails." 

By the same authority are given some of 
the ideas expounded in the Koran. 
" Ranged in stories, seven in number, are 
the heavens, the highest being the habita- 
tion of God, whose throne — for the Koran 
does not reject Assyrian ideas — is sustained 
by winged animal forms. The shooting 
stars are pieces of red hot stone thrown at 
angels by impure spirits when they ap- 
proach too closely. Of God, the Koran is 
full of praise, setting forth, often in not un- 
worthy imagery, His Majesty." * * * 
" Though it inculcates an absolute depend- 
ence on the mercy of God, and denounces 
as criminals who make a merchandise of 
religion, its ideas of the Deity are altogeth- 
er anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic 
man living in a paradise. In this respect, 



25 



though exceptional instances might be 
cited the reader rises from a perusal of the 
114 chapters of the Koran with a final im- 
pression that they have given him low and 
unworthy thoughts." 

" From the crown of the head to the 
breast God is hollow, and from the breast 
downward he is solid ; that he has curled 
black hair, and roars like a lion at every 
watch of the night. The unity asserted by 
Mahommed is a unity in special contradis- 
tinction to the trinity of the Christians, and 
the doctrine of a divine generation." The 
so-called savior is never called the son of 
God, but always the son of Mary. Through- 
out, tli ere is a perpetual acceptance of the 
delusion of the human destiny of the uni- 
verse. As to man, Mahommed is diffuse 
enough respecting a future state, speaking 
with clearness of a resurrection, the judg- 
ment day, paradise, the torment of hell, the 
worm that never dies, the pains that never 
end ; but, with all this precise description 
of the future, there are many errors as to 
the pi>st." * * * * An impartial read- 
er of the Koran may doubtless be surprised 
that so feeble a production should serve its 
purpose so well. But the theory of religion 
is one thing, the practice another. The 
Koran abounds in excellent moral sugges- 
tions and precepts; its composition is so 
fragmentary that we can not turn to a 
single page without finding maxims of 
which all men must approve. This frag- 
mentary construction yields texts, and 
mottoes, and rules complete in themselves, 
suitable for common men in any of the in- 
cidents of life. There is a perpetual insis- 
ting on the necessity of prayer, and incul- 
cation of mercy, almsgiving, justice, fasting, 
pilgrimage, and other good works," etc. 
* "For life as it passes in.Asia, 
there is hardly a condition in which pass- 
ages from the Koran can not be re-called 
suitable for instruction, admonition, conso- 
lation, encouragement." 

A perusal of the Koran can not, I affirm, 
fai] to strike the reasoner with several 
f actsj that, embodying as it does the princi- 
ples of Mohammedanism, it is inconsistent 



with science ; it is opposed to reason in the 
fundamental and most of the subordinate 
principles it teaches; it reveals a low 
spirituality ; in the language of the author 
just quoted from, it " betrays a human, and 
not a very noble intellectual origin." Mo- 
hammedanism is. not suited to become uni- 
versal. The sum of its teaching, which the 
Koran contains is, a moral grossness, greater 
in many respects than the teachings of the 
Bible. The redeeming feature it presents, 
in the insistence of charity, etc., is on the 
whole possibly a little greater than the 
New Testament, but far less than the re- 
deeming features of the Old Testament. 

It may be asked, probably with surprise, 
why and how early Mohammedanism was 
superior as a religion to early Christianity? 
This is not difficult of explanation. It, in 
practice, showed a purer morality and a more 
consistent observance of moral principles. 
It not only preached, but practiced love 
and charity. 

As Dr. Draper remarks, "the theory of 
religion is one thing, the practice another." 
Religion, as I speak of it, is practical, con- 
sisting of practice. In this sense I treat of 
early Mohammedanism now, Judaism sub- 
sequently. Accordingly, speaking of the 
former, I say it was a superior religion to 
early Christianity, because it practiced a 
higher morality. 

I understand of course that the religious 
belief and practice of the community con- 
stitute the religion, and that teaching pre- 
supposes practice and example, indeed is 
largely synonymous therewith. And when 
I say Mohammedanism preached love and 
charity I refer to those elements only to the 
extent they were practiced. Early Christi- 
anity, that religious system of the bishops 
and popes and their coadjutors , the system 
that sustained a diabolical inquisition, a 
vile tyrannj r , a despotic curb to human in- 
tellect and, insofar, human morality, that 
brought about wars for centuries almost 
without intermission, was inferior to Mo- 
hammedanism because it was free of moral 
principles; moral principles belonged not 
properly thereto. 



26 — 



So far as Mohammedanism, in the above 
sense, was and is adapted to mental and 
moral status, progress and happiness it 
flourished, no farther. It was especially 
superior to early Christianity in that its 
fundamental principle was "there is but one 
God," to which was, more modestly than 
Christianity respecting Jesus, added, " and 
Mohammed is his prophet." 

We are to ascertain how and where the 
religion of Islam spread. It has been said, 
inter alia, Christianity prevailed in Egypt 
and Greece. The church, even as it had 
done at Rome and in the West, instigated 
great barbarities in the East. Through it 
institutions of learning, reared and fostered 
under the auspices of the Ptolymies were 
destroyed, learning was inhi luted, philoso- 
phy and the philosophers were crushed ; 
and for its more secure elevation, to eradi- 
cate all opposing sentiment, it by oppres- 
sion and excessive wickedness brought 
about the commission of the most enor- 
mous cruelties. Persecution, opposition to 
free religious convictions, unless they were 
in harmony with those of the church, 
otherwise expressed, intolerance, and de- 
struction of whatever in the remotest man- 
ner threatened its structure, the promotion 
of unscrupulous and ignorant men, were a 
part of the programme as well in the East 
as the West. Reader read the acts it was 
privy to, those it induced the commission 
of, read of the atrocities of the monsters in 
crime, the early bishops, of a St. Cyril, at 
whose instance Hypathia was murdered; of 
a Theophilus, under whose regime the 
Serapion was destroyed. 

I said it was to Constantino the church 
owed its early influence, to which is trace- 
able its future formidable condition. It 
was the settled policy of Constantino to 
promote the church, that is " to divert am- 
bition from the State to the church, and 
make it not only safer but more profitable 
to be a great ecclesiastic than a successful 
soldier/' This resulted, we are told, in a 
violent competition for chief offices and 
finally for Episcopal supremacy. If was 
during his reign that the great dispute, be- 



tween Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria and 
Alexander for the bishopric of that city 
arose, which culminated in the defeat of 
Arius and his followers, who took the name 
of Arians. The Nicene Council summoned 
A. J. 325, to settle the dispute between the 
two, a dispute involving not merely the 
bishopric but something to them far graver 
and more important, doctrines for Church 
Government, decided against Arius, which 
decision Constantine enforced by banishing 
Arius, though he afterwards, it is said, with- 
in ten years restored him. The conse- 
quence of the action of the council and 
Constantine was blood-shed and horrible 
murders in the East, and the creation of 
two opposing and bitter branches of the 
church. The second action of Constantine 
ended in the death of Arius, again involv- 
ing the Christian countries of the East. 
Ariauism was defeated, and the Arians 
were branded as heretics. Dr. Draper has 
remarked: "No heresy has ever produced 
such important political results as that of 
Arius. While it " (Arianism) " was yet a 
vital doctrine, it led to the infliction of un- 
speakable calamities on the empire, and 
though long ago forgotten has blasted per- 
manently some of the fairest portions of the 
globe. When Count Boniface, incited by 
the intrigues of the patrician Aelius, invi- 
ted Genseric the king of the Vandals into 
Africa, that barbarian found in the dis- 
contented sectaries his most effectual aid. 
In vain would he otherwise have attempted 
the conquest of the country with the 
50,000 men he landed from Spain A. D. 
429." Many bishops, " with that large por- 
tion of the population who were Arian, 
(30), were ready to look upon him as a de- 
liverer, and therefore to afford him support. 
The result was the loss of Africa to the 
empire. 

"When Justinian found himself firmly 
seated on the throne at Constantinople he 
took measures to retrieve this disaster. The 
principles which led him to his scheme of 
legislation; to the promotion of manufac- 
turing interests by the fabrication of silk ; 
to the re-opening of the ancient routes to 



India, so as to avoid transit through the 
Persians dominions; to his attempt at se- 
curing the carrying trade of Europe for the 
Greeks, also suggested the recovery of 
Africa." * * * 

"To carry out Justinian's intention of the 
recovery of Africa, his general Belisarius 
sailed at mid summer A. D. 533 ; and in 
November he had completed the reconquest 
of the country." 

It has been declared "this was speedy 
work ; a work succeeded by great and re- 
markable calamities. In consequence 
thereof, and the Italian wars of this same 
prince, "the human race visibly diminish- 
ed." And to these the orthodox Christian 
clergy were privy. 

"It is affirmed that in the African cam- 
paign 5,000,000 of the people of that coun- 
try were consumed ; that during the twen- 
ty years of the Gothic war Italy lost 15,000, 
000 ; and that the wars, famines and pesti- 
lences of the reign of Justinian diminished 
the human species by the almost incredible 
number of 100,000,000." 

I follow the writer from whom I have al- 
ready so liberally quoted, trusting I shall 
not thereby open myself to the charge of 
plagiarism, since the use I put his observa- 
tion and remarks to is essentially variant 
from his own. In expressing the facts he 
asserts, I must have largely taken of the 
facts he treats of, which I could hardly so 
happily and popularly have done as he. Dr. 
Draper continues : "It is therefore not at 
all surprising that in such a deplorable con- 
dition men longed for a deliverer, in their 
despair totally regardless who he might be, 
or from what quarter he might come. Ec- 
clesiastical partisanship had done its work. 
When Chosroes II., the Persian monarch 
A. D. 611, commenced his attack, the perse- 
cuted sectaries of Asia Minor, Syria, and 
Egypt followed the example of the African 
Arians in the Vandal invasion, and betrayed 
the empire. 

"The revenge of an oppressed heretic is 
never scrupulous about its [his or her] 
means of gratification. As might have been 



expected, the cities of Asia fell before the 
Persians." 

Jerusalem was taken ; the cross was de- 
stroyed ; the miracles which the sacred 
wood accomplished were discovered to be 
an imposture. Confidence in the powers 
apostolic of African bishops was shattered 
and destroyed, "not one of them could work 
a wonder for his own salvation in the dire 
extremity." The invaders overran Egypt 
as far as Ethiopia. The Archbishop of Al- 
exandria fled to Cyprus. "The Meditera- 
nean shore to Tripoli was subdued." These 
successes destroyed the charm of the true 
cross ; notwithstanding its restoration to 
Jerusalem, the faith therein was broken, 

A. D. 509, at Mecca, in Arabia, was born 
Mohammed. He preached a mon©- 
theism. His theology, Tlwre is but one 
God. A soldier and a preacher, valiant and 
eloquent, with the sword and his eloquence 
he procured the new faith to spread. Mo- 
hammedanism became an established faith. 
It eventually became the prevailing belief 
in Alexandria, in Arabia, Syria, Asia Mi- 
nor, Egypt, and Turkey. Through the Ara- 
bian or Moorish conquests, it for several 
centuries prevailed in Spain. The mental 
status of the masses in Africa, etc., led them 
to embrace any religion that was invested, 
necessarily in practice, with superior attri- 
butes to Christianity. 

Be the repugnant characteristics of early 
Mohammedanism, what they may, it 
was for reasons already stated, and others 
following, far superior to early Christianity, 
hence the secret of its wide dissemination. 
The additional reasons are obvious ; it did 
not straight-jacket the human intellect, but 
fostered, encouraged and promoted its la- 
bors and contributions ; it advanced itself 
of and thrived because of and through 
thought and inquiry, as is shown in the 
philosophy and science that became ex- 
pounded and disseminated through its tol- 
erance, through its schools, among which I 
may mention those of Cordova and Bagdad, 
where the sciences, so far from being pro- 
hibited, were cultivated, whereby it aided 
the propagation of learning. It exhibited 



— 28- 



a spirit of enlightenment, under which be- 
ning influence institutions of learning mul- 
tiplied, inquiry grew greater, treatises of 
profound learning found the light, the re- 
sults of reason and experiment (in respect 
of which the policy of Christianity was de- 
struction) were promoted, palaces and works 
of architectural art arose, commerce began, 
manufactories sprung up, and wiser politi- 
cal structures came to exist. The influence 
of Mohammedanism was essentially politi- 
cal as affected communities as a whole ; a 
wiser administration of government ensued 
upon its advent. 

In the course of human events, Moham- 
medanism spread, as already remarked, to 
Turkey, threatening, at the same time, to 
extend its dominion over the whole of Eu- 
rope. Then the difference of Christian 
sects in Europe, before the threatened (as 
they viewed, and awful) evil, for a time be- 
came superseded by the more monotonous 
issue of the hour. Mohamme'danism must be 
stopped ; her hosts must be stayed, Europe 
must be saved, Catholic and Protestant al- 
lied, and finally the Christian arms were 
successful. Europe was saved. Not this 
alone. The hated Mohammedan in the 
west of Europe had also been vanquished — 
♦Spain was finally re-conquered. The infi- 
dels were persecuted. The Moors, as they 
were termed, were forced to leave or share 
the fate of extermination or of the wretched 
and uncertain existence of bandits and out- 
laws. With the Moors went their institu- 
tions. Spain was saved — saved at the cost of 
all the springs of human intelligence, that, 
with their refreshing spirit, had begun to 
enrich the uncultivated universe, which, 
everywhere in the mind of Europe, pre- 
sented a cheerless and forbidding aspect. 

The effect of Mohammedanism upon 
Christian Europe was not slight. Eminent 
Christians, long doubting the doctrines of 
the church, thrown in with Moors, and 
learning their works, received ideas new 
and invigorating, quaffed of the refreshing 
waters. Troubadours, with their songs, and 
others, brought into European spirit doubt 
and disgust. The policy of the church, 



through this source, was slowly being un- 
derstood, the disadvantages of Christianity 
were becoming realized, the encroach- 
ments of the Church were gradually becom- 
ing resisted. 

Let the reader, however, always remem- 
ber that I speak of Mohammedanism as a 
practical religion, and only such ; hence, its 
influence and sphere of action I confine to 
the sphere wherein it practically benefited, 
no further. It became the faith in countries 
oppressed with a worse system, and kept its 
vantage ground to the extent it was accom- 
panied with attributes of amelioration ; tol- 
eration, charity and truth, or the appear- 
ance of truth. And, toleration and charity 
given, so long as its doctrine bore the ap- 
pearance of truth, it prevailed and does still 
prevail. 

A faith, except so far as the same is based 
on reason, if the existing circumstances en- 
able it to acquire paramount influence, be- 
comes, through its advocates, despotic, 
which is only to say that those officially ad- 
vocating a religion when they acquire power, 
will resist the force which tends to depose 
or weaken them, and to stay or prevent the 
existence or growth of such a force will use 
violent means; in an equal ratio with the 
desire for office and power and unscrupu- 
lousness are the resistance and means of re- 
sistance used. 

Thus Mohammedanism became despotic, 
and when the same was inconsistent with 
the views of its expounders and followers, 
the spirit and enlightenment to that extent 
was oppressed and opposed. 

In Southern climes, where Mohammedan- 
ism alone prevails, the people are indolent, 
ignorant, imaginative and superstitious, the- 
principle of which I have shown. To this, 
together with the machinations and repres- 
sive policy of her leaders, it is owing that 
Mohammedanism in its early days, a mon- 
otheism (early Mohammedanism), became 
a general polytheism, with very few, though 
some, better features than existed before; 
Christianity ; in this agreeing with the his- 
tory of most preceding people. 

At the time early Mohammedanism threat- 



— 29 



ened Europe, it may possibly have been ac- 
quiring some of its subsequent attributes, 
which mayhap slightly swerved the mind of 
Europe. Therefore and because, as has 
ever been the case to a greater or less ex- 
tent, the disciples were associated with the 
principles of Mohammedanism, disciples 
against whom, from the habits of life, Eu- 
ropean people were impressed with a pro- 
found repugnance and with respect to whom 
they felt a superiority above, and for the 
additional reason that in many instances the 
public mind was too dark to grasp the ex- 
cellence of those principles, it did not nom- 
inally extend. Mohammedanism, as a sys- 
tem, never prevailed among Christian peo- 
ple. Through it, in its early days, however, 
a better spirit came into Europe, 
permeating her spirit — a spirit which 
heralded the downfall of the church. 
This spirit is manifested in the philosophi- 
cal doctrines that became expounded by 
Averroes and others, the colleges of France, 
Frederick of Sicily, etc., the style of archi- 
tecture, and improved habits of life. Some 
of these doubtless partly owed their being 
to other causes, causes of which some are 
hereafter referred to. 



The influence of a religious faith is prop- 
erly to be ascertained by finding the effect of 
the principles inherent in the doctrines it ex- 
pounds, advocates and teaches, rather than 
by discovering the extent of territory over 
which it prevails in name. By this crite- 
rion Ave measure the influence and spread 
of Mohammedanism in Europe, as we did 
also in the discovery of its spread in Asiat- 
ic, African, and the European nations, Tur- 
key and Span. We find that the influence 
of Mohammedanism was from two direc- 
tions, East and West. From the East in 
consequence of the invasions of the Turks 
into the heart of Europe, the result of which 
was, the discovery to the ignorant masses of 
Christian Europe of the humanity, intelli- 
gence and morality of the Saracen. From 
the West, the influence of her political and 
educational institutions in Spain. 



AKTICLE XIV. 

In knowing what Mohammedanism is, 
where and how it spread, we have a suffi- 
cient acquaintanceship with that faith to re- 
lieve me from the necessity of any further 
examinations hereinto for the proper com- 
prehension of what is herein claimed, viz. : 
Judaism is a superior faith to Mohammed- 
anism or Christianity, whether early or 
late. 

Two centuries and over after Jesus, Jew- 
ish people inhabited Egypt, Rome and Spain. 
From which particular locality they came, 
how long they had been there, and the 
manner of their coming is not, in this place, 
material. Wherever the Jewish people 
were, there, of consequence, was Judaism. 
With dissemination and propagalion, by 
emigration and generation, the J ewish com- 
munity became larger and more influen- 
tial. 

To explain the spread of Judaism in Eu- 
rope is not an easy undertaking, however 
cursory the disquisition may be. It must 
be sufficient, space and time considered, to 
give but a brief and general history of its 
progress. We measure Judaism, as Mo- 
hammedanism, by its principles ; and this 
can be done only by considering the history 
of its expounders. 

From the destruction of Jerusalem, so 
glowingly described by Flavius Josephus, 
and the wars that, at successive periods, fol- 
lowed thereupon, the existence of Jewish 
people may be traced in Rome ; from the 
time of the advent in Spain of Mohammed- 
anism, the existence of Jewish people may 
be traced in Spain. 

In Spain, while Mohammedanism pre- 
vailed, Jewish people and Judaism flourish- 
ed ; but when, with the successes of the 
Christian hosts, Mohammedanism was ex- 
pelled, from that time in Spain Judaism was 
fettered and oppressed, and when the Span- 
ish Inquisition, in aid of the church, began 
its remarkable course, Judaism within Span- 
ish borders ostensibly perished. In Rome, 
subjected to oppression and persecution, 
Judaism, confined to Ghettoes, latently 



50- 



grew, but, of consequence, it did not notice- 
ably extend its numbers. 

80 in France and England we find the 
same policy, oppression and persecution of 
Jews. So likewise it did not noticeably ex- 
tend its boundaries here. This is true also 
of Germany and Russia, etc. Nor was the 
oppression and persecution of short dura- 
tion nor limited to a few ; it lasted for cen- 
turies, and was general, yea, it exists to a 
degree to-day, and it is only because of the 
political decline of the Christian Church 
that Judaism is even tolerated to the extent 
it now is— £ e., it is only because of the in- 
telligence consequent upon knowledge that 
at present prevails and is growing and per- 
meating the countries of Europe, that Juda- 
ism occupies its present place in the condi- 
tion of the civilized globe. 

I am aware that history records that many 
of the Jewish faith were reduced, through 
the oppression and barbarity of the Catholic 
element, aided by the Inquisition and other 
agencies, to deny their creed. This, how- 
ever, was, generally, done but nominally, 
the principles of belief notwithstanding 
survived and flourished — being a part of 
their very physiology, must have existed — 
and for being latent and suppressed, flour- 
ished the more luxuriantly. 

Now, we ascertain its progress by the 
principles it teaches, and the practical ben- 
efits conferred thereby ; in doing which I 
expect to show that the tendency of hu- 
man intellect is toward a universal recog- 
nition and adoption of the principles it 
teaches. 

Let us remember what Hegel affirms of 
the art of the Hebrews, the sublimity of 
which reveals, for the first time, a mono- 
theistic religion, teaching, in its essential- 
ness, "There is but one God," w i?xi^ VD& 
ints * iyr6tf " Hear, Israel, God is our 
Lord, God is One!" and the principles of 
morality expounded in the decalogue, and 
the writings of her great men. 

I have already disclosed the concomitant- 
influences which ended in Jesus' death and 
the subsequent rise of Christianity. The 



scheme of Peter and the other apostles in 
proclaiming Jesus, Messiah of the Jews, sub- 
sequent to his death, was not successful, be- 
cause they were opposed by the Pharisees, 
because the proclamation was made not so 
much in a political as in a religious sense, 
because they had not the ability to carry 
out the same with success, and because 
they were opposed, to a certain degree, by 
Paul. That they did this with a view of 
eventually relieving the people from thral- 
dom, hoping thereby to gain them over to 
a more liberal ceremonious worship ; that 
they succeeded to the extent of only obtain- 
ing a few followers ; that the essential cause 
of their non-success was their inability 'and 
inadequacy of the scheme to satisfy the 
wishes of the Jewish masses, has, by care- 
ful and accurate criticism, I think, been tol- 
erably conclusively shown by learned au- 
thors. The converts of the doctrines ex- 
pounded by Peter and the other apostles 
were Hebrews and Israelites, and are now 
distinguished by the name of Jew-Chris- 
tians. Peter and his helpers were Hebrews 
and Israelites, observing and expounding 
the Jewish laws and customs, and their sole 
object, it seems clearly inferrable, was to 
liberalize the sentiments of the Jewish peo- 
ple, by this means effectuating the ultimate 
salvation according to the teachings of Je- 
sus. It must, in the nature of things, be 
true, assuming Jesus to be a wise man, that 
apotheosis was repugnant to his views. If he 
was, as is generally claimed, and here con- 
ceded, a sage and good man, as sage as the 
Pharisean doctors, then it must have been 
pure blasphemy to him to deify any human 
being, and must have shocked his moral 
sense to have, for one moment, the deifica- 
tion of himself suggested. 

Again, such a tenet was utterly opposed 
to the religious sense and political govern- 
ment and laws of his mother country, 
which, even if he did believe therein, and 
could, notwithstanding, be considered a 
sage man, he must have seen the impolicy 
of advocating, and hence refrained from ad- 
vancing. But the person who could desire 
himself, and could think it right to be, dei- 



81 



lied, must have been like Alexander, who, 
it is said, desired to be deified, anything but 
wise, and, consequently, unworthy of deifi- 
cation. 

Paul, supposedly the Ta'mudical Acher, 
was also, a teacher of Christianity. But he 
taught doctrines of his own, independently 
of Peter, James, and the other apostles at 
Jerusalem. He preached to the Gentiles in 
Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and 
Rome. He taught that the Jewish laws and 
customs were abrogated, preached against 
circumcision, and in favor of the " Son of 
God," the end of the earth, a day of resur- 
rection and final judgment; doctrines in 
conflict with the principles of Jewish be- 
lief. If he attempted to do so, he was un- 
successful in propagating his doctrines 
among the Jewish masses at Jerusalem, but 
it does not satisfactorily appear, he so at- 
tempted. Paul preached 52 to (54 years af- 
ter Jesus, contemporaneously with some of 
the apostles. The converts of Paul are des- 
ignated "Gentile-Christians." He preached 
his doctrines to heathens to accomplish 
eventually this moral salvation, with a view, 
doubtless, of liberalizing his system when 
the condition of the mental atmosphere 
was favorable. It is«said he believed in the 
Unity of God, and the laws and customs of 
the Jews. 

The teachings of Paul were opposed to 
the apostles at Jerusalem, and subsequent- 
ly by Rabbi Akiba and the Jewish doctors of 
Judea. The doctrines expounded by Akiba 
and the doctors, in opposition to Paul, were 
the force and application of the laws and 
customs of the Jews, circumcision, and, I 
may add as doubtless true, that Jesus was 
no "Son of God," as Paul taught it, namely, 
in a divine sense. Finally, the separate 
and distinct schemes of salvation were at- 
tended with a climax. Rabbi Akiba and 
his followers and co-adjutors, seeking their 
freedom from the exciting oppression, 
raised a rebellion and Bar Cochba, (some- 
times called Cokeba), was their general. 
But they met with defeat and thus destroyed 
all hopes of ever accomplishing their 
schemes. From this time too the labor of 



the apostles in Jerusalem, etc., is no longer 
found to bear fruit, but to lose influence. 

The Jewish people dispersed, emigrating 
to Egypt, Europe, and elsewhere. But the 
doctrines of Paul spread, gentile-christen- 
dom extended in numbers, congregations 
came to be, churches were erected, and ere 
the death of Paul his scheme had developed 
and promised a happy issue. Thus Gentile- 
Christian doctrines spread, and the churches 
expounding them became, with increase, 
more powerful, culminating into an episco- 
pacy, and ultimately, through the Bishops, 
Constantine, the Popes, and their instru- 
ments and agents, into a vast, almost resist- 
less political engine, the power of which 
was reflected, as it were, from Rome as a 
focus. 

But the doctrines of Judaism were op- 
posed to these, and while confined to Judea 
they successfully resisted them. With the 
death of Akiba and the annihilation of 
schemes and their dispersion, this opposi- 
tion became weakened, and in Europe, 
where Jewish influence was comparatively 
very small, the doctrines at first found no 
material resistance therefrom; in time, how- 
ever, they presented lesistance, and it was 
then and thereafter, they experienced the 
reciprocal resistance of the church and 
Christians. A resistance accompanied with 
horrible barbarities and excruciating cruel- 
ty; a resistance impregnated with intoler- 
ance, hatred, and contempt, with which 
mercy was a spirit as well as unknown ; a 
resistance so greatly exceeding anything be- 
fore experienced, that in dismay, the Jew- 
ish believers, as already intimated, had to 
bury their faith beyond the cognizance of 
the vigilant Gentile-Christian fathers. And 
where in the centuries posterior to Con- 
stantine, the church, in its episcopacy, stood 
strong and irresistible, disseminating Juda- 
ism could make but slow headway. Yet it 
maintained itself. 

Now I am to digress, and from the cur- 
sory and but partial consideration of the 
state of Judaism in Europe above given, 
carry myself back to the seat of Judaism. 
Jerusalem, and from thence to Africa, etc. 



-32- 



I refer to the doctors in India, and the 
many excellent doctrines they expounded 
to prove that the Jewish nation at this ear- 
ly day exhibits learned men, of respectable 
wisdom. Men, as the study of the laws 
governing their people will easily demon- 
strate, who were tolerant and equitable, op- 
posed to capital punishments, and opposed 
to the persecution of any one for religious 
convictions. But Jewish learned men were 
not alone in Judea ; they were to be found 
in Africa and in the East, elsewhere, and 
this not merely in Jesus' time, but in suc- 
ceeding centuries, except so far as repressed 
by the Church and the Romans. 

The military operations of the Arabians, 
in Africa, heretofore mentioned, over- 
threw the Byzantine political system in 
Egypt and the countries conquered. In a 
few centuries the fanatics of Mohammed had 
altogether changed their appearance. Great 
philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, 
astronomers, alchemists, and grammarians, 
had arisen among them. Letters and sci- 
ences, in all their various departments, 
were cultivated. 

A nation stirred to the profoundest depths 
by warlike emigration, and therefore ready 
to make, as soon as it reaches a period of 
repose, a rapid, intellectual advance, may 
owe the path in which it is about to pass, to 
those who are in the position of pointing it 
out, or of officiating as teacher. The teach- 
ers of the Saracens were the Nestorians and 
the Jew r s. 

It has been remarked that Arabian sci- 
ence emerged out of medicine, and that in 
its cultivation physicians took the lead, its 
beginning being in the pursuit of alchemy." 
•* * * * * * 

"When the Arabs conquered Egypt, their 
conduct was that of bigoted fanat ; cs." * * 
* " But scarcely were they settled in 
their new dominions when they exhibited 
an extraordinary change. At once they 
became lovers and jealous cultivators of 
learning." 

The Arab power had been submitted to 
two influences. In Asia to the Nestorians, 
in Africa to the Jews, " Brought into uni- 



son in Asia with the Nestorians, and in Af- 
rica with the Alexandrian Jews, the Ara- 
bians became enthusiastic admirers of learn- 
ing." 

The Jewish people had produced distin- 
guished physicians. When the light of 
knowledge was ready all but to die out, 
through the influence of the Jews and Nes- 
torians it was kept alive, and by their active 
aid it enlarged, presenting a new growth, 
through the Arabians to our day. After 
the destruction of Jerusalem, all Syria and 
Mesopotamia were full of Jewish schools ; 
but the great philosophers, as. well as the 
great merchants, of the nations, were resi- 
dents of Alexandria." 

" At first, after the fall of the Alexandria 
schools, it was all that the Jewish physi- 
cians could do to preserve the learning that 
had descended to them But when the tu- 
mult of Arabic conquest was over, we find 
them becoming the advisers of crowned 
heads, and exerting, by reason of their ad- 
vantageous position, their liberal education, 
their enlarged views, a most important in- 
fluence on the intellectual progress of hu- 
anity." (31). From the same source I 
mention the names of some of these distin- 
guished men (32). Maser D'jaiwah, physi- 
cian to the Khalif Moajiwah, distinguished 
as a poet, critic and philosopher; Kalid, 
who translated many books from the East : 
Haroun, a physician of Alexandria, who 
wrote on small-pox, and the method of treat- 
ing it : Isaac Ben Amram, the writer of an 
original treatise on poisons; Joshua Ben 
Min, said to have been the most celebrated 
professor of the school of Bagdad, itself act- 
ively promoting the translation of Greek 
works into Arabic. In this manner the 
writings of Plato and Aristotle were se- 
cured. 

The result of this intellectual movement 
was diffusion of light. "Schools arose in 
Bassan, Ispahan, Samarcand, Fez, Morocco, 
Sicily, Cordova, Seville, Grenada." 

Thus, according to Dr. Draper, and as is 
largely true, through the Jews and Nestori- 
ans learning became disseminated, and not 
only the Arabic mind, but the mind of all 



— 33 



coming within the intellectual sphere, were 
enlightened and liberalized. 

From Africa to Spain the Arab spread, 
and with him the schools, arts and liberal 
sentiment prevailing in his native land. 
With him went the Jew. Not that Jewish 
people had no residence in Spain ere this 
time, but because the free and intelligent 
spirit of the Jew was not there, doubtless 
due to the ignorance of those residents, and 
possibly partly because whatever free and 
intelligent spirit there threatened to be was 
crushed out by Gentile-Christian power. 
With the Arabian conquest of, and regime 
in, Spain, the Jewish people there prosper- 
ed. The resulting evidences of his genius 
are not few. The vast works revealed to 
have existed in Spanish history in the reign 
of Mohammedan rulers, which lasted for 
centuries ; the schools, the edifices, the fac- 
tories, the sciences all directly or remotely 
are due to Jewish influence, attest Jewish 
spirit. And these, extending to and pene- 
trating, as already indicated, the mind of 
Christian Europe, exercised an imporiant 
influence upon the subsequent intellectual 
and moral development of Europe, which 
is synonymous with the slow decline of in- 
tolerance. 

When the Christian hosts, by open war- 
fare, and the insidious, bloody workings of 
the inquisition and other agencies, effec 
tually suppressed the Mohammedan, the Jew 
too was suppressed, and the works of their 
enlightenment, so far as they assumed a tan- 
gible shape, became, virtually, gradually 
extinct in Spain. Not, it is true, thereby 
effectually crushing out all effects resulting 
from these institutions. The spirit implica- 
ted thereby, and breathed, so to say, there- 
from, had penetrated the mind of Europe, 
and in the edifice and other works, escap- 
ing destruction, must have continued, in an 
extent, to subsist, and the throes it produc- 
ed in the body of intelligence in Christian 
Europe became manifest; throes existing, 
indeed, before the advent of these agencies, 
leading to the vigorous pursuit of the hell- 
ish and damnable policy carried out, carried 
out that the spirit of inquiry should be 



stopped, a spirit against which it was impos- 
sible the political existence of the Church 
could last. 

From our digression we have returned to 
Europe, and are entitled to say : Thus, af- 
ter their dispersion, the spirit of the Israel- 
ite was benefiting Europe. Penetratiug the 
mind of Europe, from the Spanish domin. 
ions it secretly, if not openly, started the 
springs of intelligent reflection and thought 
among Europe's hosts. But the conquest 
of Spain closed this source of enlightenment 
from shedding further light, and the Jewish 
inhabitants there, like elsewhere, as said in 
a preceding part, were obliged to worship in 
secret. We have come back to the point of 
digression. 



Montesquieu (Spirit of Laws, Book xxi. 
chap, xvii.), speaking "Of Commerce after 
the Destruction of the Western Empire, 
says: 

" After the invasion of the Roman Em- 
pire, one effect of the general calamity was 
the destruction of commerce. ' The barbar- 
ous nations at first regarded it only as an 
opportunity for robbery; and when they 
had subdued the Eomans, they honored it 
no more than agriculture, and the other 
professions of a conquered people. Soon 
was the commerce of Europe entirely lost. 
The nobility, who had everywhere the di- 
rection of affairs, were in no pain about it." 
(p. 39.) 

The Jews were an agricultural and a com- 
mercial people, but they were suppressed 
through the acts of monarchs and professors 
of Christianity generally. Montesquieu 
says again. "What passed in England may 
serve to give us an idea of what was done 
in other countries. King John having im- 
prisoned the Jews, in order to obtain their 
wealth, there were few who had not at least 
one of their eyes plucked out. Thus did 
that king administer justice. A certain 
Jew who had a tooth pulled out every day 
for seven days successively gave ten thou- 
sand marks of silver for the eighth. Henry 
III. extorted from Aaron, a Jew, at York, 
fourteen thousand marks of silver, and ten 



— 34 



thousand for the Queen. In those times 
they did by violence, what is now done in 
Poland with some semblance of moderation. 
As princes could not dive into the purses of 
their subjects, because of their privileges, 
they put the Jews to the torture, who were 
not considered as citizens. 

"At last a custom was introduced of con- 
fiscating the effects of those Jews who em- 
braced Christianity. This ridiculous cus- 
tom is known only by the law which sup- 
pressed it. The most vain and trifling 
reasons were given in justification of that 
proceeding, it was alleged that it was proper 
to try them, in order to be certain that they 
had entirely shaken off the devil." * * * 

"I cannot help remarking, by the way, 
how this nation has been sported with from 
one age to another ; at one time their effects 
were confiscated when they were willing to 
become Christians ; and at another, if they 
refused to turn Christians, they were or- 
dered to be burnt. 

" In the mean time, commerce was seen 
to rise from the bosom of vexation and de- 
spair. The Jews, proscribed by turns from 
every country, -found out the way of saving 
their effects. Thus they rendered their re- 
treat forever fixed ; for though princes 
might have been willing to get rid of their 
persons, yet they did not choose to get rid 
of their money, 

" The Jews invented letters of exchange ; 
commerce, by this method, became capable 
of eluding violence, and of maintaining ev- 
erywhere its ground ; the richest merchant 
having none but invisible effects, which he 
could convey imperceptibly wherever he 
pleased." 

"The theologians were obliged to limit 
their principles; and commerce, which 
they had before connected by main force 
with knavery, re-entered, if I may so ex- 
press myself, the bosom of probity."— ^p. p. 
40,41,42. Id. 

" Aristotle's philosophy being carried to 
the west, pleased the subtle geniuses, who 
were the virtuosi of those times of igno- 
rance. The schoolmen were infatuated 
with it, and borrowed from that philoso- 



pher a great many notions on lending upon 
interest, whereas its source might have 
been easily traced to the Gospel ; in short, 
they condemned it absolutely and in all 
cases. Hence commerce, which was the 
profession only of mean persons, became 
that of knaves ; for whenever a thing is for- 
bidden which nature permits or necessity 
requires those who do it are looked upon as 
dishonest. 

" Commerce was transferred to a nation 
cursed with infamy, and soon ranked with 
the most shameful usury, with monopolies, 
with the buying of subsidies, and with all 
the dishonest means of acquiring wealth." 
—Ibid., p. 41. 

"Thus we. owe to the speculations of the 
schoolmen all the misfortunes which accom- 
panied the destruction of commerce ; and 
to the avarice of princes the establishment 
of a practice which puts it in some measure 
out of their power." — Ibid., p. 43. 

The same author, in preceding chapters 
of the same work (as also many others), 
speaks of the genius of the Eomans with 
respect to commerce before the destruction 
of the Eternal city by the Barbarians. 



This quotation from Montesquieu has 
benefited us, in that it leads us from the 
point of digression, to which we have re- 
turned, in our discussion of European spir- 
ituality. Thereby my previous assevera- 
tions are confirmed and we are introduced 
to a realization of the benefits accomplished 
through Jewish instrumentality in the suc- 
ceeding centuries of European history. But 
let it not be believed that I place implicit 
reliance on Montesquieu. His remarks, I 
am aware, are not clear and even somewhat 
contradictory, and in some respects, I think, 
he is inaccurate. I do not think tire notions 
of the schoolmen in respect to commerce 
were so much the outcome of Aristotlian phi- 
losophy as the erroneous ones received from 
the religious faith they professed. The re- 
pugnance of the schoolmen to commerce 
arose, as Montesquieu seems to think, from 
their opposition to lending on interest. The 
Church too was opposed to lending on in- 



• 



35- 



terest, and it is doubtless true that the 
schoolmen received their opposition from 
the Church, whose teachings they mostly 
followed. It was the policy of the Church 
to have all things conform to her policy 
(and this was opposed to commerce), and 
the notions of the schoolmen, duly regard- 
ful of the Church, and possibly sincerely, 
were so conformable that I am even rather 
of the opinion that Aristotlian philosophy 
would have impelled the mind, as that of 
Averroes, in an opposite direction, namely, 
to have embraced commerce. (33) 

I do not affirm that Jewish people were 
never free from molestation ; had such been 
the case they had become exterminated. 
What I affirm is, that they were, on the 
average, oppressed, or not given equal free- 
dom with Christians, were debased to a low 
moral standard and treated accordingly by 
the then Christian mind. And this the 
quotation from Montesquieu (a Christian 
writer), which is but a sample, evidences. 
The policy of monarchs was the policy of 
the Church. The Jew was selected by vir- 
tue of the fact of his being a Jew by mon- 
archs and the nobility in their acts of bar- 
barity, thus indicating the presence of re- 
prehensible principles ; principles of Chris- 
tianity, for Christianity was the criterion in 
the minds of the monarchs, etc., of propri- 
ety and excellence, principles of indubita- 
ble viciousness. 

Again I do not concede so great an effect 
to letters (bills) of exchange as Montes- 
quieu. 

From what is above quoted and said, it is 
to be gathered, and in this the conclusions 
are essentially correct, that the commerce 
which prevailed among the Eomans did not 
extend to the countries inhabited and gov- 
erned by the barbarians ; that they were 
averse to it as to agriculture ; that in conse- 
quence of the destruction of the Eoman 
Empire commerce was, for a while, crippled 
and suspended, if not destroyed; that it 
was through the Church and the schoolmen 
discountenanced, and even by the latter 
opposed ; that the large mass of the people, 
accordant with monarchs and the nobility, 



regarded commercial pursuits as vile and 
infamous, contemplating war and the 
Church as proper avocations ; that the Jew- 
ish people were differently impressed and 
followed commercial pursuits, but thereby 
opposing themselves to public sentiment 
were, beside for religious convictions, per- 
secuted and oppressed (thus we see com- 
mercial spirit beside religious belief added 
to their misery); that the persecution occa- 
sioned the use of bills (letters) of exchange; 
that afterwards, in time, through the exten- 
sion of traffic, the commercial pursuit was 
no longer deemed a disgraceful or vile occu- 
pation. 

But the barbarians, so-called, were not 
always barbarians, but, as heretofore indi- 
cated, were emerging out of, and progress- 
ing in the lapse of centuries, further and 
further from that state. Had it been other- 
wise, Christianity, even as vicious as it was, 
could not nave been imposed upon them, 
nor would the spirit of feudalism have pre- 
sented the progress it did in lessening the 
rigor common to the system. A progress in 
its early stages, fairly indicated by Montes- 
quieu in his ''Esprit de Lois" (Spirit of 
Laws). The law of nations (Jus Gentium) 
was the growth of many centuries, formed 
into a system by the later publicists, among 
whom Grotius stands eminent. Among the 
influences culminating in its establishment 
is the commercial or maritime system, 
which antedated the period of these public- 
ists. This system was found in a compara- 
tively crude state early in the history of 
Europe, as early, probably, as the 11th cen- 
tury after Jesus. AVh ether it came directly 
or mediately from the Eomans we are 
not concerned to inquire, it is enough to 
say that this system existed, to which T sup- 
plement, and it has ever since existed and 
grown. Thus at Marseilles in France, in 
Italy, among the Ffanse towns of Holland 
and Germany, and in Sweden, this system 
could be found. 

Hence, I credit to the Jewish people not 
the sole commercial spirit, but that to 
them the credit of keeping alive a 
commercial activity when commerce threat- 



— 36 — 



ened, in consequence of the teachings 
and polic}^ of the Church to expire must, I 
submit, be conceded. And that, subse- 
quently, they were largely instrumental in 
its promotion, that the use of bills of ex- 
change is principally due to them, and, in- 
cidentally, the banking system is, it is sug- 
gested, unquestionable. Here I may appro- 
priately remark, these the Church opposing, 
we may conclude that in the rise and estab- 
lishment of this system early Christianity, 
i. e., the Church, began to wane. The doc- 
trines of the Church were of such a nature 
that commerce and commercial spirit could 
only injure it. 

To commerce is largely due the enlighten- 
ment of man ; it promotes locomotion, the 
reception of new ideas, and stirs the springs 
of thought, superinducing reflection, reason 
and doubt ; it must have inspired doubt in 
the doctrines of the Church, especially such 
as affected it. It is the life-giving element 
of commercial customs, otherwise denomi- 
nated the law merchant, of which the law re- 
lating to promissory notes, bills of exchange, 
and maritime law in most of its particulars 
and international policy are the product and 
growth. It is, as eminent writers have 
shown, the liberalizer of sentiment, produc- 
ing toleration, leading to skepticism, and, 
next to science and philosophy, the bugbear 
of the Church. Judaism, however, is not 
inconsistent with commerce, never obstruct- 
ing its progression or extension, but thriv- 
ing in its thrift. The same may be said of 
this faith in respect of the branches of hu- 
man learning. 

As has been seen, the oppression the 
Jewish people of Europe experienced, while 
it made them outcasts everywhere, did not 
materially disturb their convictions or 
change their purpose. They continued, 
though sometimes secretly, the accumula- 
tion of wealth, to which is owing, in no 
small part, domestic, and eventually 
international, commerce. It was only 
when the potentates and powerful nobility 
of the countries inhabited began the prac- 
tice of horrible tortures for the purpose of 
securing their wealth and their banishment, 



that this people were constrained to cease 
almost entirely the open accumulation and 
exhibition of wealth. It has been told how, 
to meet the exigency of the times, bills of 
exchange were invented. These, by their 
easy and secret transmission of wealth, 
tended to keep alive commerce. Though 
being opposed, commerce thus in secret 
channels of traffic extended, until, as the 
public mind became more and more proper- 
ly conditioned, it eventually developed into 
an irresistible force, a force of which the 
maritime system in existence among the 
Hanse towns, etc , was early a form. That 
this extension has been attended with in- 
creased and increasing influence to the Jew- 
ish people, surely can not, in reason, be 
denied. 

The consequences of the extension of 
commerce, beside those above enumerated, 
are an enlargement of knowledge,the opening 
of the avenues of sense and reason, a disbelief 
in supernatural things, an inquiry into the 
causes of things, which latter, in higher 
branches, may be denominated science and 
philosophy. 

Tho voice of reason, of necessity, and the 
sense of the commercial world all declare the 
importance of commerce, and in that deter- 
mination the despised Jew finds a reward 
and no little satisfaction. He does, howev- 
er, not gloat over the consequence to the 
Church, his happiness not being in the mis- 
ery of others. His religion, instilling the 
warm, beneficent spirit of charity, teaches 
that he should only feel compassion. But 
his rew T ard is the proud consciousness that 
the little instrument he aided to nurse and 
fostered has not deceived him in the fruit it 
has borne, but is a healthy, progressive and 
mighty instrumentality, which the experi- 
ence of man, in his enlightenment, has ac- 
corded unqualified recognition and support ; 
that in its pathology is extensively contained 
the pathology of human civilized nations; 

The influence of Jews in philosophy. 
Maimonides, Spinoza and Mendelssohn ! 
Ask these what aid Philosophy has received 
from the Jew, and ask the world what she 
owes to these. The Jew has nothing to be 



— 37 



ashamed of. Spinoza still holds the rank he 
is entitled to. Let us see what a Christian 
philosopher says of him. 

After stating and explaining how modern 
science, commencing with the metaphysical 
epoch, has three stages or phases, and after 
explaining what the three phases are, with 
respect to the first of which he says, "The 
first stage of the devolopment closes with 
attempts on all hands to put the results in 
an encyclopedical form," of which tenden- 
cy, he remarks, Humboldt's Cosmos is a 
good example ; classes Herbert Spencer's 
system in the second phase, and accords to 
Spinoza's philosophy, with Plato, Aristotle, 
and Hegel, a place in the third and highest 
phase, and calls him the clearest-minded 
thinker of modern times (34). That their 
influence is and has been great is, I think, 
conceded by all who are competent to judge. 
These are but a part ; more, among whom is 
Ibn Zaddik, might be mentioned, but we 
rest content with these. 

At the close of the eighteenth century we 
find the Jewish people had partly establish- 
ed themselves ; the most violent of the op- 
pression against them had ceased, though 
much still prevailed, especially in particular 
countries and localities. And from thence 
to this day toleration, with the acquisition 
of learning resulting from commerce, loco- 
motion, material pursuits, etc., and reason, 
has obtained a greater and higher place, so 
that now Jewish persons may be found in 
high places, in the institutions of learning, 
in political assemblages, etc., a just tribute 
to their ability and worth. It is a source of 
regret that this justice to this people is, in 
some European countries, and even in 
some localities in America, still withheld. 

Since the eighteenth century Judaism 
has sprung up and developed in America. 
The influence it has brought into the con- 
dition of her people, the institutions there 
it has aided in creating, and the position 
which that faith there holds, unquestion- 
ably show its dissemination and healthy 
progress. In the large cities of the Union, 
and to the extent of my knowledge, all the 
small, the Jewish community occupy an 



honorable and enviable position. Though 
it is true that much prejudice still exists in 
the minds of some ignorant or narrow- 
minded ones against this people, which fre- 
quently finds expression in defaming the 
whole creed for the acts of one (acts not 
more criminal than the criminal records of 
the country show the commission of ten 
times, in proportion, as frequently by 
Christian men). In my discussion, how- 
ever, I do not assume that there are no in- 
dividuals among the Jewish community de- 
serving contempt, nor that they are perfect. 
In point of enlightenment they exhibit no 
greater progress than many whom I am 
bound, pursuant to custom, to class as 
Christians, except it is in the fundamental 
principle of their belief. What I seek to 
show and claim is, that the average spiritu- 
ality exhibited by this people has been one 
of comparatively greater morality and intel- 
ligence than the masses of humanity among 
whom their influence became permeated. — 
(35.) 

To summarize : Judaism in principle — 
rational Judaism — was a religion in Pales- 
tine, existing even in the palmy days of 
polytheistic faith in Egypt and Greece ; and 
notwithstanding polytheism, before the ten- 
dency of intellectual development, has been 
and is giving way and slowly disappearing, 
this faith has held its own, and so far from 
losing ground it has enlarged its sphere of 
influence. Originally a monotheistic faith, 
comprehending the highest spirituality, it 
has never become degraded, through the 
mental action of its followers and believers, 
to a polytheism, thereby, as far as the envi- 
ronment was favorable to intellectual pur- 
suits of all kinds, never obstructing, or in 
the leastwise hindering, the development of 
intelligence. Ostracised in consequence of 
Roman conquest and oppression it made its 
appearance in Europe, where, so far as we 
are concerned, it spread. Hardly had it 
acquired a foothold when Christianity, ex- 
tending and growing in influence, despotic- 
ally endeavored to, and did, repress it. Ju- 
daism was, however, not suppressed. Com- 
merce and individual necessities made the 



— 38 — 



Jewish population a valuable and indispen- 
sable acquisition, and they were hence not 
wholly exterminated, besides which, it is 
doubtless true, the Jewish population 
gained a secure foothold before Christianity 
had acquired sufficient influence to repress 
it, after which it was not possible to extin- 
guish them. Anyhow Judaism existed and 
spread. 

Between the eleventh and nineteenth 
centuries in Spain, Holland, and Germany, 
the Jewish population presented to the intel- 
lectual world a number of profound think- 
ers and commentators — thinkers and phi- 
losophers whose writings have gained a 
world-wide reputation and carried a vast 
influence over the civilized community 
where known. I have mentioned three 
among these writers, a portion, but no mean 
portion of the number. 

Thus we summarize. Now, I say, in con- 
sequence of these writings, the growing in- 
telligence of the Christian world, and the 
abolishment of many obnoxious ceremoni- 
als, and intelligence among its members, 
the Jewish faith has become, and is becom- 
ing, more and more influential. It now 
presents two branches, Orthodox and Re- 
form. The former adhere to the old cere- 
monies, etc.; the latter having more regard 
for reason, rely upon the principles of the 
religion, do not place so much stress upon 
ceremonies, viewing them as mere inciden- 
tals, at present necessary machinery, with- 
out which the existence of the faith would 
be precarious, yet in favor of their abolition 
as the condition of the mind of the believer 
makes expedient. With this development 
goes a better consciousness of the funda- 
mental principle of that religion — a princi- 
ple barely understood by any, those so 
understanding it being very few. In Amer- 
ica, the land of independent and unre- 
strained thought, the principle is being 
grasped. But within the last year there 
appeared in the columns of the American 
[sbaelitb, published at Cincinnati, 0., a 
series of philosophical lectures, entitled 
'•Soph Dabar," delivered by Dr. Isaac M. 
Wise, the Mendelssohn of America, at the 



regular service of the synagogue over whose 
congregation he presides as Minister, upon 
this principle, in which the conclusions of 
philosophy are conciliated and shown to be 
not only consistent with, but to lead to the 
fundamental principle of Judaism (36) — a 
principle which, arising in Palestine, has 
come down through the long course of cen- 
turies, reflecting the glory of present and 
future reason. I would wish that more of 
the Christian community informed them- 
selves of the present mode of worship 
among the followers of Judaism (not the 
orthodox so much as the reform) and the 
history of that people ; for it is undoubtedly 
true that much of the prejudice existent 
arises from an ignorance, which such action 
will largely dispel. Moreover, the Chris- 
tian who is unfamiliar therewith will be 
surprised at the liberal tone of the lectures 
he will hear expounded from the Jewish 
Reform pulpit. 



It will be expedient in this connection to 
indicate why Judaism has not spread more 
than to its extent. 

This is owing, at first, to the powerful op- 
position of the Church, and subsequently 
the continuing opposition of Christian 
creeds. Besides these the following serves 
to explain the subject of inquny. The Jew- 
ish people, because of the calamities befall- 
ing them attendant upon their war with 
Rome, their subjugation and its consequen- 
ces, the backwardness of their knowledge 
and their spirit of gain, remained in com- 
parative ignorance even into the present 
century, notwithstanding, however, remain- 
ing true to their religion. Because of this 
ignorance, and probably also the oppression 
of the dominant faith (which obliged the 
Jew to worship in secret), they attached 
and accorded importance to each observ- 
ance, form, or ceremony constituting a part 
of their worship, imagining, by reason of 
incapacity to discover differently, those ob- 
servances, etc., to be an essential and indis- 
pensable part of the religion itself, and this 
being incompatible with reason and sense, 
and these ideas being mixed up with the 



39 — 



recognition of the pure principles which 
really constitute the doctrines of Judaism, 
prevented the spread of Judaism, nominal- 
ly, though, of course, it could not prevent 
the spread of the pure principles them- 
selves — principles expounding truth and 
the highest spirituality. Indeed the prin- 
ciples are, to an extent, being practiced to- 
day, though Judaism is not generally cred- 
ited therewith. 

When I speak of Judaism I do not confine 
my remarks to a word, but to the pure prin- 
ciples of the Jewish religion. Those prin- 
ciples constitute the logical fabric by which 
its first and fundamental principle is carried 
out, which is belief in God as Omnipotent, 
necessarily One, a unity, the All-Creative 
Power. This belief comprehends the most 
rational recognition of God, and in a relig- 
ious point of view, its necessary concomi- 
tant, a pure worship of God. This is pure, 
rational Judaism. It is true there are many 
forms which constitute a part of the Jewish 
ritual, but the ceremonies, forms, etc., are 
mere machinery, or rather instrumentalities 
fitted to practical requirements, created 
necessarily and existing for practical pur- 
poses ; but these, as already said, constitute 
no essential part of its doctrines. Judaism 
is practical, it teaches and practices charity, 
love, and truth. Charity toward all, love 
for all, and truth among all, comprehending 
a high and pure morality ; such morality as 
in purity involves self-government in hu- 
man perfection, that has no occasion for 
penal statutes or artificial forms of govern- 
ment, that fixes the individual in the high 
state where the interests of the community 
and the individual, if not identical, at least 
are never in conflict; which places him 
above the axiom of contemporaneous civil- 
ized governments, that the individual must 
suffer for the benefit of the community. — 
"Le Salut du peuple est la supreme loi" (37). 

ARTICLE XV. 
The spirit of Christianity, taken as a 
whole (given Platonic and Aristotlian and 
later philosophy, and the spirit which be- 



came infused into it through Mohammedan- 
ism and Judaism), has been toward a higher 
spirituality. Had it never become a system 
possibly such barbarisms as were perpetra- 
ted under its auspices had not been com- 
mitted, and intelligence would have been 
allowed a comparatively free growth. But 
remembering that all spirit is the outcome 
of environing and limiting conditions, pos- 
sibly if that policy, the system of Christi- 
anity exercised, had not existed, the pro- 
gression of intelligence, on the average, had 
been slower than it has been. The mind, 
originally loath to work, had become stag- 
nant. That opposition excites, and that 
oppression leads to reflection, and that from 
these arises thought — mental action — surely 
will hardly be questioned, and that this 
was the moving cause of much of the 
thought and progress, which, through age 
upon age, was imposed upon Europe, and 
even the East, we find is largely true. That 
by the mighty conflicts which in the Chris- 
tian era have occurred, possibly the family 
of man has been in all things more greatly 
benefited than under any other conditions 
that could reasonably have existed, may be 
true. Consequently we can say that Chris- 
tianity in its effects, upon the whole, was a 
wicked system. 

In drawing the comparison between the 
religion of Mohammedanism and Christian- 
ity I confined my remarks to early Christi- 
anity and early Mohammedanism. Later 
Mohammedanism I am hardly assured is 
superior to early Christianity, not suffi- 
ciently, at least, to make a distinguishable 
difference as respects the spirituality each 
expose. Conceding a doubtful margin, as 
the logicians would say, to the period when 
the spirit of Christianity was developing to 
a higher state, I predicate of later Christi- 
anity generally the spirit which resulted 
from the writings of the Casuists, later 
ethical writers, including publicists, and, to 
a very great extent, from the extension of 
commerce and the incidents thereof, and 
schools, colleges, and universities. I, how- 
ever, do not class the spirit of philosophers 
with Christianity, for, purely, that is utterly 



40 



repugnant to the distinguishing principle of 
Christianity — a principle without which 
Christianity is a mere word without mean- 
ing ; and so also much of the spirit result- 
ant from the spread of commerce I do not 
class under Christianity, as it shows a dis- 
belief not only in the Bible as still preached 
by all Christian churches, but a disbelief in 
the Godhead of Jesus Christ, a disbelief of 
anything save a One and Eternal God, 
though not even that in a state of proper 
reason. This spirit is far from being that 
of previous ages ; it is a spirit, conceding in 
conscience the fallibility of every person 
(even the Pope); desirous of justice, though 
denning that justice by very questionable 
scales ; advocating and giving a restricted 
freedom from man, so far as governments 
in the exercise of their conceded provinces 
shall restrict the same. In short, it is a 
spirit evincing a general desire for truth, 
but possessing, so to say, only some grains 
thereof. A spirit incapable yet of accepting 
the abstract notion of one eternal God, yet 
slowly, through a concrete concept, attain- 
ing a purer state ; a state when science and 
philosophy shall be alike acceptable, which 
in its natural evolution shall end in pure 
Monotheism, in that " sphere where all 
contradictions are cancelled ; where the 
idea of the good and of happiness in their 
perfect accord and their enduring harmony 
is realized." Which now is a profound 
want of the soul, to be satisfied, not in three 
ways, as Hegel would have us believe, but 
in one way; not by art, religion, and philos- 
ophy, but by religion. 



ARTICLE XVI. 

What bearing has the Bible on the fu- 
ture? 

What influence the Bible may have had 
upon the masses of humanity in the ages of 
its existence of course I am unable to say, 
except from, general observation, nor is it 
essential to discuss that question. It con- 
sists of the Old Testament or Scriptures, 
and the New Testament. 

Originally compiled of fragments of tradi- 



tions and accounts, the productions of dif 
ferent periods, preserved and handed dow 
from generation to generation, the Old Tes 
tament has descended to us, recopied and 
remodeled, from the original text (probably 
inscribed, when first written, on skins in 
the old Hebrew characters, the same, per- 
haps, as that found on Maccabean coins, — 
maybe of Phoenician origin*), though all 
the successive compilations and translations 
and recompilations, changes and arrange- 
ments, constituting the Massoretic text, the 
Alexandrian translations, etc. I am not 
disposed to deny that, substantially, it has 
been preserved in a tolerably complete 
state. According to Josephus it compre- 
hends twenty-two books : in the English 
Bible, thirty- nine, according to other ar- 
rangements, twenty-four and twenty-seven. 

The New Testament is of comparatively 
recent origin ; it dates existence after Je- 
sus, is mostly the compilation of writings 
written to advance the interests of the 
Church in its nascent stage. It consists of 
twenty-seven books, inclusive of the Apoca- 
lypse. Both books contain some excellent 
observations, and both have had great bear- 
ing upon the welfare of the human race 
among whom prevailing. The New Testa- 
ment has not withstood the criticism of the 
learned, and is in material respects contra- 
dictory and unreliable. Its composers have, 
in some respects, been shown ignorant of 
the subjects they treated. Matthew, John, 
Mark, and Luke, in their accounts of the 
trial of Jesus and his whereabouts before 
the trial, are contradictory, and the same may 
be predicated of his genealogy as related by 
them. It is less reliable than some of our 
histories, and contains, all in all, fewer 
moral principles than works on ethics and 
other writings extant. 

The Old Testament, venerable in its anti- 
quity, comes to us with more marks of the 
divine than the New. It presents to us an 
account of Genesis^which Josephus, in his 
first book against Apion, considers tradition), 
which has to within the last generation 



■ 



* Or perhaps of Assyrian origin. 



— 41 — 



been pretty generally accepted as true. It 
discloses the Decalogue, comprehending in 
a wonderfully short form the greatest prin- 
ciples of morality ever expounded by mor- 
tal man, in which respect it is, as hereafter 
explained, entitled to the attribution of di- 
vine origin. It also contains the laws which 
Moses is said to have given to his people — 
laws which have been the archtype in some 
particulars for other systems of law. Be- 
sides these it contains the books of the 
Prophets and the so-called sacred writings. 

These books have been claimed to con- 
tain all the learning of man, to be the crite- 
rion of the truth of things. Upon this 
principle the Church proceeded, and shaped 
its policy to a great extent accordingly. 
Much, indeed a very great part, of the Old 
Testament is inconsistent with man's expe- 
rience, and in some respects is also self- 
contradictory, and not a little unsatisfactory. 
The Xew Testament has no great feature. 
Yet so far as these harmonize with man's 
progressiveness they may prevail; but 
when they stand opposed to reason, expe- 
rience, and observation, defective as they 
are, altered and modified as they have been, 
with their contradictions, etc., they must 
yield. 

Some will cry out in what I must think 
unholy horror at such a conclusion. Assert- 
ing the divide origin of the Bible, they will 
insist upon the writer's infidelity. Yet if 
they have reason they conscientiously must, 
it seems to me, believe with him. The as- 
serted divine origin of the work has already 
been discussed ; the remarks there submit- 
ted are here applicable. 

Yet let us concede for all Bibles a divine 
origin. Let us, however, ever recollect that 
they come to us through and by the agency 
of the human being. Xow all truth is God's; 
the greater the knowledge the nearer the 
approach to truth; sometimes knowledge, 
owing to superior mental capacity, is pre- 
sented in a higher form in some than among 
others, hence in some the knowledge ac- 
quired is greater, the truth more apparent, 
and comprehending a larger sphere; each 
new operation of mind, mediately or imme- 



diately discovering truth, is a revelation, 
and as it comes from the same mysterious 
source as all created things original mustly, 
be that spirit which, as remarked before, 
man alone recognizes above himself — God, 
of nature inscrutable. In so far as, say 
Moses, possessed the knowledge and genius 
for discovering truth and expounding the 
same, as in the instances of the Decalogue, 
etc., to such extent there was a divine rev- 
elation, just so far was he inspired. So also, 
mutatis mutandis, with Jesus. So of many 
persons, only the inspiration is greater in 
some than others. That which opposes 
truth is, necessarily, farthest from the di- 
vine inspiration. But truth is measured in 
the balance of man's judgment, and is fre- 
quently the result of long experience, much 
observation, continued experiment, and 
long and laborious thought ; it is shown in 
the highest form, I submit, in the high spir- 
ituality I have defined. By this process we 
understand how the books of the Old and 
Xew Testament, so far as they expose truth, 
are a revelation from God, are of a divine 
origin. 

It will possibly be demurred that this hy- 
pothesis assumes inspiration and revelation 
to be variant from what is ordinarily under- 
stood. But I can not think so. The doc- 
trine of revelation and inspiration, if ex- 
pounded on a different principle, has, I 
conceive, never been understood. It may 
be different from that imagined; but the 
imagination of those so impressed is of a 
quality the opposite of what I desire, an 
imagination altogether synonymous with a 
faith without reason. 

This, of course, assumes that a regular or- 
der, a grandly beautiful, uniform, and per- 
fect system is that which the Omnipotent 
has fixed, and not a fragmentary, fitful, ir- 
regular creation, on the same principle that 
a regular, systematic work of man is greater 
and nearer truth than a fickle, unmethodi- 
cal creation. 

Then in the mental and moral develop- 
ment of the human race, the Bible if my 
argument be valid, will yield to the degree 
it is inconsonant with reason and truth. 



— 42 — 



That the tendency is in such a direction 
there surely can be no reasonable doubt. 
We have commented on this tendency 
slightly in the preceding article ; it is mani- 
fest from the general disbelief of some por- 
tions of the Bible. And what detriment 
can possibly result ? Why, argument only 
proves that the inclination to disbelieve 
some parts is augmented to disbelieve other 
unessential parts. Unessential because op- 
posed to truth and reasom But since rea- 
son is not possessed to the required extent 
by the masses, and since the progression of 
the masses to such a state is tardy, the full 
and truthful view of the Bible can not yet 
be taken, and because of that condition my 
view in this chapter will be considered as 
invalid, and, perhaps, even vicious. 



ARTICLE XVII. 



Let me quote the words of Herbert Spen- 
cer, so apt and expressive. (First Principles, 
Sec. 32.) : 

" An immense majority will refuse, with 
more or less of indignation, a belief seeming 
to them so shadowy and indefinite. Hav- 
ing always embodied the ultimate cause so 
far as was needful to its mental realization, 
they must necessarily resent the substitu- 
tion of an ultimate cause which can not be 
mentally realized at all. ' You offer us,' 
they say, ' an unthinkable abstraction in 
place of a Being toward whom we may en- 
tertain definite feelings. Though we are 
told that the absolute is real, yet since we 
are not allowed to conceive it, it might as 
well be a pure negation. Instead of a 
Power which we can regard as having some 
sympathy with us, you would have us con- 
template a Power to which no emotion 
whatever can be ascribed. And so we are 
to be deprived of the very substance of our 
faith.' 

" This kind of protest of necessity accom- 
panies every change from a lower creed to 
a higher. The belief in a community of 
nature between himself and the object of 
his worship, has always been to man a sat- 



isfactory one; and he has always accepted 
with reluctance those successively less con- 
crete conceptions which have been forced 
upon him. Doubtless, in all times and 
places, it has consoled the barbarian to 
think of his deities as so exactly like him- 
self in nature that they could be bribed by 
offerings of food ; and the assurance that 
deities could not be so propitiated, must 
have been repugnant, because it deprived 
him of an easy method of gaining supernat- 
ural protection. To the Greeks it was man- 
ifestly a source of comfort that on occasion 
of difficulty they could obtain through ora- 
cles the advice of their gods, — nay, might 
even get the personal aid of their gods in 
battle ; and it was, probably, a very genu- 
ine anger which they visited upon philoso- 
phers, who called in question these gross 
ideas of their mythology. A religion which 
teaches the Hindoo that it is impossible to 
purchase eternal happiness by placing him- 
self under the wheel of a Juggernaut, can 
scarcely fail to seem a cruel one to him, 
since it deprives him of the pleasurable 
consciousness that he can at will exchange 
miseries for joys. Nor is it less clear that 
to our Catholic ancestors, the beliefs that 
crimes could be compounded for by the 
building of churches, that their own pun- 
ishments and those of their relatives could 
be abridged by the saying of masses, and 
that divine aid or forgiveness might be 
gained through the intercession of saints, 
were highly solacing ones ; and that Pro- 
testantism, in substituting the conception of 
a God so comparatively unlike ourselves as 
not to be influenced by such methods, must 
have appeared to them hard and cold. Nat- 
urally, therefore, we must expect a further 
step in the same direction to meet with a 
Bimilar resistance from outraged sentiments. 
No mental revolution can be accomplished 
without more or less of laceration. Be it a 
change of habit or a change of conviction, 
it imst, if the habit or conviction be strong, 
uu violence to some of the feelings; and 
these must, of course, oppose it. For long- 
experienced, and therefore definite, sources 
of satisfaction, have to be substituted 



43 



sources of satisfaction that have not been 
experienced, and are, therefore, indefinite. 
That which is relatively well known and 
real has to be given up for that which is 
relatively unknown and ideal. And, of 
course, such an exchange can not be made 
without a conflict invoking pain. Espe- 
cially, then, must there arise a strong an- 
tagonism to any alteration in so deep and 
vital a conception as that with which we 
are here dealing. Underlying, as this con- 
ception does all others, a modification of it 
hreatens to reduce the superstructure to 
ruins. Or to change the metaphor — being 
the root with which are connected our ideas 
of goodness, rectitude, or duty, it appears 
impossible that it should be transformed 
without causing these to wither away and 
die. The whole higher part of the nature 
almost of necessity takes up arms against a 
change which, by destroying the established 
associations of thought, seems to eradicate 
morality. 

"This is by no means all that has to be 
said for such protests. There ^is a much 
deeper meaning in them. They do not 
simply express the natural repugnance to 
revolution of belief, here made specially in- 
tense by the vital importance of the be- 
lief to be revolutionized ; but they also ex- 
press an instinctive adhesion to a belief 
that is in one sense the best— the best for 
those who thus cling to it, though not ab- 
stractedly the best. For here let me re- 
mark, that what were above spoken of as 
the imperfections of religion, at first great 
but gradually diminishing, have been im- 
perfections only as measured by an abso- 
lute, standard, and not as measured by a 
relative one. Speaking generally, the re- 
ligion current in each age and among each 
people, has been as near an approximation 
to the truth as it was then and there pos- 
sible for men to receive. The more or less 
concrete forms in which it has embodied 
the truth, have simply been the means of 
making thinkable what would otherwise 
have been unthinkable; and so have for 
the time being served to increase its im- 
pressiyeness. If we consider the conditions 



of the case, we shall find this to be an un- 
avoidable conclusion. During each stage 
of evolution, men must think in such terms 
of thought as they possess. While all the 
conspicuous changes of which they can ob- 
serve the origins, have men and animals 
as antecedents, they are unable to think of 
antecedents in . general under any other 
shapes ; and hence creative agencies are 
of necessity conceived by them in these 
shapes. If, during this phase, these con- 
crete conceptions were taken from them, 
and the attempt made to give them com- 
paratively abstract conceptions, the result 
would be to leave their minds with none 
at all ; since the substituted ones could not 
be mentally represented. Similarly with 
every successive stage of religious belief, 
down to the last. Though, as accumulat- 
ing experiences slowly modify the earliest 
ideas of casual personalities, there grow up 
more general and vague ideas of them ; 
yet these can not be at once replaced by 
others still more general and vague. Fur- 
ther experiences must supply the needful 
further abstractions, before the mental void 
left by the destruction of such inferior 
ideas can be filled by ideas of a superior 
order. And, at the present time, the re- 
fusal to abandon a relatively concrete no- 
tion for a relatively abstract one, implies 
the inability to frame the relatively ab- 
stract one ; and so proves that the change 
would be premature and injurious. Still 
more clearly shall we see the injuriousness 
of any such premature change, on observ- 
ing that the effects of a belief upon con- 
duct must be diminished in proportion as 
the vividness with which it is realized be- 
comes less. 

Evils and benefits akin to those which 
the savage has personally felt, or learned 
from those who have felt them, are the 
only evils and benefits which he can un- 
derstand ; and these must be looked for as 
coming in ways like those of which he has 
had experience. His duties must be im- 
agined to have like motives and passions 
and methods with the beings around him ; 
for motives and passions and methods of a 



44 



higher character, being unknown to him, 
and in a great measure unthinkable by him, 
can not be so realized in thought as to in- 
fluence his deeds. During every phase of 
civilization, the action of the Unseen Real- 
ity, as well as the resulting rewards and 
punishments, being conceivable only in 
such forms as experience furnishes, to sup- 
plant them by higher ones before wider ex- 
periences have made higher ones conceiv- 
able, is to set up vague and uninfluential 
motives for definite and influential ones. 
Even now, for the great mass of men, un- 
able through lack of culture to trace out 
with due clearness those good and bad 
consequences which conduct brings around 
through the established order of the Un- 
knowable, it is needful that there should 
be vividly depicted future torments and 
future joys — pains and pleasures of a defi- 
nite kind, produced in a manner direct 
and simple enough to be clearly imagined. 
Nay, still more, must be conceded. Few, if 
any, are as yet fitted wholly to dispense 
with such conceptions as are current. The 
highest abstractions take so great a mental 
power to realize with any vividness, and 
are so inoperative npon conduct where they 
are vividly realized, that their regulative ef- 
fects must, for a long period to come, be ap- 
preciated on but a small minority. To see 
clearly how a right or wrong act generates 
consequences, internal and external, that 
go out branching out more widely .as years 
progress, require a rare power of analysis. 
To mentally represent even a single series 
of these consequences, as it stretches out 
into the remote future, requires an equally 
rare power of imagination. And to estimate 
these consequences in their totality, ever 
multiplying in number while diminishing 
in intensity, requires a grasp of thought 
possessed by none. Yet it is only by such 
analysis, such imagination, and such grasp, 
that conduct can be rightly guided in the 
absence of all other control : only so can ul- 
timate rewards and penalties be made to 
outweigh proximate pains and pleasures. 
Indeed, ^ere it not that throughout the 
progress ©f tto »ac*, mesa^s ©acperiences of 



the effects of conduct have been slowly 
generalized into principles— were it not tha' 
these principles have been from generation 
to generation insisted on by parents, upheld 
by public opinion, sanctified by religion, 
and enforced by threats of eternal damna- 
tion for disobedience— were it not that un- 
der these potent influences, habits have 
been modified, and the feelings proper to 
them made inate— were it not, in short, 
that we have been rendered in a considera- 
ble degree organically moral ; it is certain 
that disastrous results would ensue from 
the removal of those strong and distinct 
motives which the current belief supplies. 
Even, as it is, those who relinquish the 
faith in which they have been brought up, 
for this most abstract faith in which Science 
and Religion unite, may not uncommonly 
fail to act up to their convictions. Left to 
their organic morality, enforced only by 
general reasonings imperfectly wrought out 
and difficult to keep before the mind, their 
defects of nature will often come out more 
strongly tfran they would have done under 
their previous creed. The substituted 
creed can become adequately operative 
only when it becomes, like the present one, 
an element in early education, and nas the 
support of a strong social sanction. Nor 
will men be qnite ready for it until, through 
the continuance of a discipline which has 
already partially moulded them to the con- 
ditions of social existence, they are com- 
pletely moulded to those conditions." 

The remarks of Mr. Spencer have brought 
us to a consideration of man's present state. 
With reference to religious notions man 
may be said to be in a state on a par with 
the general moral spirit of the community. 
This offers to us the criterion of man's con- 
dition respecting which future change is 
to be regulated. Let us bear this in mind. 
Speaking of the Christian religion we stand 
confronted with the notion of Jesus Christ. 
What is that notion ? To one used to con- 
ceiving an abstract spirit or power this no- 
tion must connotate a concrete form repre- 
senting a dead human being, which impli< 



— 45 — 



cates the further impression that those who 
worship him beside and with God are poly- 
thelsts. To some the meaning of polythe- 
ism is so inexplicable that they are not of- 
fended at the term as applied to them or 
their faith, but some, aware of its meaning, 
are shocked to be included under the term. 
Are they polytheists? Ecclesiastics and 
believers will say no. 

If there are Christian believers who verily 
conceive Jesus as a divine being, beside 
God, to be worshiped and to worship, Jesus 
known as such in life and blood, they, un- 
questionably, are polytheistic, and there is 
no Absolute, Eternal God to them. But a 
large proportion of those believers do not 
conceive Jesus in this light, believing as 
they do in an Absolute ; they are told by 
the minister of their congregation " to re- 
ceive Christ," " to believe in him [Christ], 
and they will receive him ;" struggling 
mentally they endeavor to conceive Christ, 
and to receive him ; but they do not know 
how, and, in short, are not positive they re- 
ceive him, and, indeed, do not receive him. 
The clergyman most generally does not ex- 
plain what Christ is, and the mind of the 
believer is left dark. If you ask such a be- 
liever for a candid answer, he will, truth- 
fully, tell you, " he don't understand what 
Christ is." Notwithstanding the fact, many 
will assert to .the contrary, " they do know 
what Christ is," and divers of such sects, 
believers in the Absolute, will indignantly 
reply, "we do explain what Christ is." 
Concede this : Christ then is a spirit, is a 
moral spirit like, it is sa'J, Jesus possessed. 
But it is not definitely known what spirit 
Jesus possessed, and that spirit was not 
Christ. If it be a spirit leading the human 
being to the divine, does man's condition 
require that Christ, as a concrete form, or 
that the spirit, the moral spirit, the moral 
spirit like, it is reputed, Jesus was, should 
be preached ? If the latter, then the sphere 
of ministers of Christian churches, in civil- 
ized mmtries, for the discussion of truth, 
.ueed not, practically, be limited to the Bible, 
mt may safely extend out through all the 
-aim of science and philosophy. If, how- 



ever, due regard being had to all persons' 
welfare, Christ must be preached, then let 
those who believe themselves - above poly- 
theism, separate themselves from such poly- 
theistic dogmas, and establish churches and 
religion conformable to their faith. 

Ministers of the gospel of enlightened 
congregations should not oppose such a 
change. The evil they now complain of — 
of empty benches on the day of worship — 
will be more efficaciously cured than by re- 
vivals (which are mostly a failure), depend- 
ing for their continuance or change upon the 
morality, mental grasp and ability of the 
minister himself. By inaugurating such a 
change, it will be found congregations will 
flourish better, and many narrow ideas will 
be dispelled, and what is of far more im- 
portance, humanity will be benefited. 



ARTICLE XVIII. 

Referring here again to what Hegel has 
said respecting man's destiny, quoted in 
Article V, in which he shows man can not 
attain the perfect realization of his ideas 
without " elevating himself to a higher 
sphere, where all contradictions are can- 
celled ; where the idea of the good and of 
happiness in their perfect accord and their 
enduring harmony is realized," I may, I 
trust, now conclude. 

The human being's desires affect his ma- 
terial and spiritual person, and his ultimate 
object is happiness. His happiness, as re- 
spects his material person, is effected by the 
cultivation of knowledge, and is found in 
the state of knowledge synonomous with 
perfect truth, as far as lies within the mi- 
crocosm, that gives unlimited physical free- 
dom and a pure moral sense, that, too, gives 
a spirituality, lying behind the region of the 
material, at the farthermost limits of rea- 
son, which his being can not comprehend, 
a notion — a spiritual notion — of God, which 
can not possibly now be properly conceived, 
and which shall with higher and developing 
reason be more and more clearly defined 
and grasped. So far as his pursuit of ma- 
terial happiness has tended toward the high 



46 



spirituality, I understand as such, so far is 
the spiritual person affected, and so far 
spiritual happiness effected. When the 
highest state shall have been arrived at, his 
spiritual happiness shall be necessarily com- 
plete, " the profound want of the soul " will 
be satisfied. Without this, art is imper- 
fect, and philosophy is not pure. It is the 
sum of all reasoning, impossible to be, it 
seems to me, so long as different systems of 
philosophy shall be pointing to different 
conclusions in men's minds. It is the apex 
of mental evolution. It is not, correctly 
speaking, the conciliatory point of science, 
philosophy and religious systems, it is the 
spirit to which perfect conciliation leads, 
and mole, it is beyond a pure belief, in con- 
science, inherently, in God. No fanati- 
cism, no credulous faith, but a pure faith 
resulting because of reason and only where 
reason has arrived at its highest state ; a 
state arriving at which all tongues shall pro- 
claim, what all minds shall acknowledge, 
and all persons shall worship in perfect 
human accord, in truth, 

THE ONE, ETERNAL GOD. 

(the end.) 



NOTES TO THE ESSAY. 

1. " The distance between the lower and 
higher apes is far greater than between the 
latter and man ; and if the consanguinity of 
the entire apedom is decisive in favor of 
Darwinist] c views, there can be the less 
doubt of the kindred connection of the Old 
World apes to mankind. But the form of 
the mature skull and of the dentition (to 
lay a stress upon these organs), preclude 
the idea that the direct ancestors of man are 
to be found among the apes now living. 
The cheap jest, produced with so much glee, 
of inquiring why we do not behold the in- 
teresting spectacle of the transformation of 
a chimpanzee into a man, or conversely, of 
a man by retrogression into an ourang, 
merely testifies the crudest ignorance of the 
doctrine of Descent. Not one of these apes 
can revert to the state of his primordial an- 
cestors, because, except by retrogression — 
by which a primordial condition is by no 
means attained — he can not divest himself 
of his acquired characters fixed by heredity; 



nor can he exceed himself and become man; 
for man does not stand in the direct line of 
development from the ape." 



" While requiring by logical deduction, a 
common origin for man and the anthropom- 
orphous apes, the doctrine of Descent, as it 
is almost superfluous to say, repudiates the 
senseless demand for intermediate forms 
which go back to the common point of de- 
rivation of the present apes and of man." 

" Descent and Darwinism," by Schmidt, 
International Series, p. page 4. Prof. 
Schmidt is a Darwinist, and his view is, I 
think, the last and as correct as yet assumed 
for Darwinism. From the quotation we 
learn, it is error to suppose that Darwinism 
claims man to have come from the monkey. 
I have seen nothing in Darwin's works t® 
controvert this view. 

2. This is equally true, though in a some- 
what different form if the Darwinian theory 
is followed. 

3. In some countries, as in India, Russia, 
parts of Austria, Sweden, and (of which 
there are however only faint traces), En- 
gland, growth appears to have been from 
family to " village community. " (See 
Maine's" Ancient Law," and " Village Com- 
munities:" Passim). It is remembered that 
the history of Italy presents " municipial" 
as a condition between " tribe " and " na- 
tion," The terms employed in the text 
serve to disclose an idea sought to be con- 
veyed, which is all that is aimed at. 

4. " Science of Law," pages 78 and 79, In- 
ternational Series. D. Appleton & Co. 

5. Ibid, pages 67 and 68. 

6. Hamilton's Logic. 

7. The following is credited to Prof. Rich- 
ard Owen (Address before the Oriental So- 
ciety, of London, September 20, 1874:) 

"The Papuans of New Guinea, with co- 
quate, dark-skinned, crisp-haired, progu- 
athic peoples of Australia, New Hebrides, 
New Caledonia, and neighboring islands, 
bespeak by affinities of their rude dialects, 
as well as by physical characters, a low and 
early race oi mankind, which in some re- 
spects indicate kinship with the Boschismen 
of South Africa, but are yet sufficiently dis- 
tinct to suggest a long term of existence in 
another and distant continent. Zoological 
and geological evidences concur, as in a de- 
gree exemplified in Wallace's 'Malay Archi- 
pelago,' to point to a pre-historic race of 
mankind, existing generation after genera- 
tion on a continent which, in course of 



-47- 



gradual non-cataclysmal , geological change, 
has been broken up into insular patches of 
land ; there such race is still open to eth- 
nological study. Wending westward to re- 
gain the proper field of our congress, we 
have evidences of as early — if I say ' primi- 
tive ' it is because we know none earlier — 
bipeds, in the trans — Gaugatic peninsula 
and Indonesian Archipelago. Tnese Ni- 
gritos, in India, have tied before invaders 
from the sub-Himalayan range, represented 
by Burnese and Siamese ; before invaders 
from the South, the Malays, with their 
maritime advance in civilization ; before 
later immigrations from the North, with the 
religion and literature respectively of the 
Aryan Hindoos and the Arab Mussulmans. 
Fragments of the dwarf Nigrito stratum may 
be picked up — a scanty one in Eugomho, 
the largest island off Sumatra, in the Her- 
gui Archipelago, in the Nicobar Isles, and 
in the Audamaus. The Nigritos who have 
survived such changes, and have been 
caught, so to speak, upon a new continent, 
have preserved themselves in mountain 
fastnesses and forests, have fled before later 
immL'-ants, have never assimilated there- 
with nave always been looked upon by 
them as prior in time-, and now are verging 
toward extinction. In speculating,' there- 
fore, on the place of origin of Mincopics 
and hill-tribes, I would impress upou eth- 
nologists to set aside ideas of the actual dis- 
position of land and sea as being necessa- 
rily related thereto, and to associate with 
the beginning of such low forms of human- 
ity a lapse of time in harmony with the 
latest geological changes of the earth's sur- 
face. . . . The cardinal defect of specu- 
lators on the origin of the human species 
seems to me to be the assumption that the 
present geographical condition of the earth's 
surface preceded or co-existed with the 
origin of such species." 

See " Natural History of Man," by M. De 
Quatrefages. Published by D. Appleton 
& Co. K Popular Science Library, page 148. 

The doubt suggested by Prof. Owen im- 
plies that the human race did not originate 
in Central Asia, or Asia at all. This view, 
however, is sustained by M. De Quatrefages, 
Max Muller, and a number of others. Any- 
how, outside of all speculation, it is true 
that the beginnings of civilization may be 
traced to Central Asia, which is sufficient, 
whatever the place beyond. 

8. The twelve races cited in the table 
given, may be characterized by the aid of 
natural history ; and as within the limits of 
the best known races languages and families 
ot languages may be found, which preclude 



any common origin, it follows that the 
formation of language began only after the 
still speechless primordial man had diverged 
into races." " Descent and Darwinism," by 
Schmidt, page 308 (International Series). 

Prof. Schmidt quotes Fried rich Muller 
(Allgemeine Etlmographie Wen. 1873). 
" The lauguages of these four families " 
(Lasque, Caucasian, Hamito-Scientic and 
Indo-Germanic), " are, as is generally ac- 
cepted by the most accomplished linguists, 
not mutually related. If we, therefore, see 
that the Mediterranean race includes four 
families of people in no way related to one 
another, the inference is obvious, that, as 
each language must be traceable to a soci- 
ety, the single race must have gradually 
fallen into four societies, of which each in- 
dependently created its own language. A 
further inference is that the race, as such, 
does not acquire a language ; for, were this 
the case, race and language would now be 
co-extensive, which is not the case." Ibid, 
page 309. 

Whatever the origin of language, the po- 
sition assumed in the essay is not impaired. 

9. Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 
Vol. I., No. 1, pages 41 and 42. 

10. Herbert Spencer's " First Principles " 
(The Unknowable). Chapters ii., iii., iv., 
v. " The analysis of every possible hypo- 
thesis proves, not simply that no hypothesis 
is sufficient, but that no hypothesis is even 
thinkable. And thus the mystery which 
all religions recognize, turns out to be a far 
more transcendent mystery than any of 
them suspect — not a relative, but an abso- 
lute mystery." Sec. 14. Chapter ii. Ibid. 

11. Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 
Vol. I., No. 2, Second Edition, page 93. 

12. Ibid. 

13. The words are those of Mr. J. A* 
Martling, translative of Benard's Text :- 
which|is analytical of Hegels' " ^Esthetics." 

14. Pages 94 and 99. Journal of Specula- 
tive Philosophy. Vol. L, No. 2. Second 
Edition. 

15. Ibid. Note, page 100. 

16. Maine ("Ancient Law") is of the 
opinion that this Code was never fully ac- 
cepted and in force in India, 

17. We class the Hindoos with the In- 
dians. 

18. The observations of Prof. Schmidt and 
Friedrich Mutter, quoted in note 8, ante, 
give color to the theory that the religious 



-48- 



notionsof the different Eastern nations were 
mot indigenious. If such be true, then 
the fact of sameness in their content shows 
the presence, in some particulars, of equal 
mental and moral status, and leaves the 
doctrine of divine origin ascribable alone to 
the Scriptures as untenable. 
See Article XVI. post. 

19. The term " Carbarians," is that com- 
monly used by historians. It is, however, 
rather a generic term than accurately ex- 
pressive of the state of these tribes. It must 
be considered as used in a qualified sense 
in this essay, except where the proper qual- 
ification, by way of explanation, is given in 
connection with the use of the term. 

20. "Three Lectures on the Origin of 
Christianity," and "Origin of Christianity," 
by Dr. I. M. Wise. " Crucifixion and the 
Jews," by Dr. Phillipson. 

21. We find the tendency to exaggerate 
and to deify human beings very great among 
the ancients, and, for that matter, even 
among moderns. Where Monotheism was 
not firmly established, this tendency, as 
among the Maccedonians, Greeks and Ro- 
mans, etc., was frequently manifested in the 
deification of heroes. 

22. The trial of Jesus, as related in the 
books of the New Testament, has been 
shown unreliable, and most probably false. 
See " Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth," by 
Dr. I. M. Wise. 

23. Spencer's " First Principles." Sec. 32. 
Article XVII. post. With which compare 
" Origin of Christianity," by Wise. 

24. "Origin of Christianity," by Wise. 
See further Article XIV. post. 

25. Ibid. 

26. Vide Article I., ante for meaning of 
" world." 

27. Vide Article II., ante. 

28. "First Principles," chapter I, et seg. 

■ 29. Dr. Draper, " Intellectual Develop- 
ment of Europe." 

30. Followers of Arius. 

31. Draper's "Intellectual Development 
of Europe." 

32. Ibid. 

33. The passage from Aristotle relating 
to interest is Polit. 1. i. c. 10, and is sus- 
pected to be, and probably is, spurious. 

34. "That modern science, commencing 
with the metaphysical epoch, has three 
stages or phases: 

" (I). The first rests upon mere isolated 
facts of experience ; accepts the first phase 
of things, or that which comes directly be- 



fore it, and hence, may be termed the stage 
of immediateness. 

" (II). The second relates its thoughts to 
one another and compares them ; it devel- 
opes in equalities ; tests one through an- 
other, and discovers dependencies every- 
where ; since it learns that the first phases 
in objects is phenomenal, and depends on 
somewhat lying beyond it ; since it denies 
truth to the immediate it may be termed 
the stage of mediation. 

" (III). A final stage which considers 
phenomenon in its totality, and then seizes 
it in its noumenon, and is the stage of the 

comprehension. 

"To resume: the first is that of sensuous 
knowing; the second,that of reflection (the un- 
derstanding) ; the third, that of the reason (or 
the speculative age)." — Journal of Specula- 
tive Philosophy, Vol. I., No. 1., page 8. 

" In fact, if the mind is disciplined to sep- 
arate pure thinking from pure imagination, 
the infinite is not difficult to think. Spin- 
oza saw and expressed this by making a 
distinction between infinitum actu (or ra- 
tionis) ; and ' infinitum imaginationis,'' and his 
first and second actions are the immediate 
results of thought elevated to this clearness. 
This distinction and his ' omnis determinatio 
est negation together with development of 
the third stage of thinking (according to 
reason), 'sub quandum specie xternitatis,'' 
these distinctions are the priceless legacy of 
the clearest-minded thinker of modern 
times ; and it behooves the critic of ' human 
knowing,' to consider well the results that 
the ' human mind ' has produced through 
those great masters— Plato and Aristotle, 
Spinoza and Hegel." — Ibid, page 11. 

35. It may be true that some of the fol- 
lowers and believers of Judaism would at- 
tempt to check the growth of ideas, but 
such action is not generally tolerated. It 
may also be true that many Jewish persons, 
at different times, may have exhibited prej- 
udice and acrimony against believers in 
other, especially Christian creeds, but this, 
where general, was the result of the treat- 
ment they were subjected to and their gen- 
eral ignorance. 

36. These lectures are to be published in 
book form by Bloch & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 
under the title of " The Cosmical God." 

37. In the XL, XII., XIII and XIV Arti- 
cles, and possibly in the others, some errors 
may be found, but I think so far as they 
disclose the evolution of and present exist- 
ing state of religious spirit, and the ten- 
dency of man toward the higher spirituality 
they will be found correct. 



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